Connect to FreshBooks Data in as an External Source in Dremio

The CData JDBC Driver for FreshBooks implements JDBC Standards and allows various applications, including Dremio, to work with live FreshBooks data. Dremio is a data lakehouse platform designed to empower self-service, interactive analytics on the data lake. With the CData JDBC Driver, you can include live FreshBooks data as a part of your enterprise data lake. This article describes how to connect to FreshBooks data from Dremio as an External Source.

The CData JDBC Driver enables high-speed access to live FreshBooks data in Dremio. Once you install the driver, authenticate with FreshBooks and gain immediate access to FreshBooks data within your data lake. By surfacing FreshBooks data using native data types and handling complex filters, aggregations, & other operations automatically, the CData JDBC Driver grants seamless access to FreshBooks data.

Build the ARP Connector

To use the CData JDBC Driver in Dremio, you need to build an Advanced Relation Pushdown (ARP) Connector. You can view the source code for the Connector on GitHub or download the ZIP file (GitHub.com) directly. Once you copy or extract the files, run the following command from the root directory of the connector (the directory containing the pom.xml file) to build the connector.

mvn clean install

Once the JAR file for the connector is built (in the target directory), you are ready to copy the ARP connector and JDBC Driver to your Dremio instance.

Installing the Connector and JDBC Driver

Install the ARP Connector to %DREMIO_HOME%/jars/ and the JDBC Driver for FreshBooks to %DREMIO_HOME%/jars/3rdparty. You can use commands similar to the following:

ARP Connector

docker cp PATH\TO\dremio-freshbooks-plugin-20.0.0.jar dremio_image_name:/opt/dremio/jars/

JDBC Driver for FreshBooks

docker cp PATH\TO\cdata.jdbc.freshbooks.jar dremio_image_name:/opt/dremio/jars/3rdparty/

Connecting to FreshBooks

FreshBooks will now appear as an External Source option in Dremio. The ARP Connector built uses a JDBC URL to connect to FreshBooks data. The JDBC Driver has a built-in connection string designer that you can use (see below).

Built-in Connection String Designer

For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the FreshBooks JDBC Driver. Double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command line.

java -jar cdata.jdbc.freshbooks.jar

Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

To connect to FreshBooks, you can set the CompanyName and Token connection properties. Alternatively, you can use the OAuth authentication standard.

OAuth can be used to enable other users to access their own company data. To authenticate using OAuth, you will need to obtain the OAuthClientId and OAuthClientSecret by registering an app. See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

NOTE: To use the JDBC Driver in Dremio, you will need a license (full or trial) and a Runtime Key (RTK). For more information on obtaining this license (or a trial), contact our sales team.

Add the Runtime Key (RTK) to the JDBC URL. You will end up with a JDBC URL similar to the following:

jdbc:freshbooks:RTK=5246...;CompanyName=CData;Token=token;

Access FreshBooks as an External Source

To add FreshBooks as an External Source, click to add a new source and select FreshBooks. Copy the JDBC URL and paste it into the New FreshBooks Source wizard.

Save the connection and you are ready to query live FreshBooks data in Dremio, easily incorporating FreshBooks data into your data lake.

More Information & Free Trial

Using the CData JDBC Driver for FreshBooks in Dremio, you can incorporate live FreshBooks data into your data lake. Check out our CData JDBC Driver for FreshBooks page for more information about connecting to FreshBooks. Download a free, 30 day trial of the CData JDBC Driver for FreshBooks and get started today.