Use the CData JDBC Driver for FreshBooks in MicroStrategy

MicroStrategy is an analytics and mobility platform that enables data-driven innovation. When you pair MicroStrategy with the CData JDBC Driver for FreshBooks, you gain database-like access to live FreshBooks data from MicroStrategy, expanding your reporting and analytics capabilities. In this article, we walk through creating a database instance for FreshBooks in MicroStrategy Developer and create a Warehouse Catalog for the FreshBooks data.

The CData JDBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live FreshBooks data in MicroStrategy due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from MicroStrategy to FreshBooks, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to FreshBooks and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. With built-in dynamic metadata querying, you can visualize and analyze FreshBooks data using native MicroStrategy data types.

Connect to FreshBooks in MicroStrategy Developer

You can connect to FreshBooks in MicroStrategy Developer by adding a database instance based on the CData JDBC Driver for FreshBooks.^* Before you begin, you will need to install the JDBC Driver for FreshBooks on the machine hosting the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server that your instance of MicroStrategy Developer is connected to.

1. Open MicroStrategy Developer and select a Project Source.
2. Navigate to Administration -> Configuration Managers -> Database Instances and right-click to add a new instance.
3. Name the instance, select Generic DBMS as the database connection type, and create a new database connection.
4. In the database connection wizard, name the connection and create a new Database Login name, setting the user and password for FreshBooks.
5. On the Advanced tab for the connection wizard, set the additional connection string parameters as follows.
   • Add the JDBC keyword to the connection string.
   • Set MSTR_JDBC_JAR_FOLDER to the path of the directory containing the JAR file for the JDBC driver. (C:\Program Files\CData JDBC Driver for FreshBooks\lib\ on Windows.)
   • Set DRIVER to cdata.jdbc.freshbooks.FreshBooksDriver, the driver class.
   • Set URL to the JDBC URL for the FreshBooks driver, which contains the necessary connection properties.

     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.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the FreshBooks JDBC Driver. Either 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.

     When you configure the JDBC URL, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

   Typical additional connection string properties follow:

   JDBC;MSTR_JDBC_JAR_FOLDER=PATH\TO\JAR\;DRIVER=cdata.jdbc.freshbooks.FreshBooksDriver;URL={jdbc:freshbooks:CompanyName=CData;Token=token;};
6. Ensure that you have not selected an ODBC data source (this will trigger MicroStrategy to use the additional connection string parameters to build the database instance) and click OK.
7. Click OK to close the database instance wizard.
8. In the Project Source, right-click the project and open the Project configuration.
9. Navigate to Database Instances, select the newly created database instance, and click OK.
10. Close MicroStrategy Developer and restart the connected MicroStrategy Intelligence Server to complete the database instance creation.

With the database instance configured, you will now be able to connect to FreshBooks data from the Warehouse Catalog and Data Import.

Connect to FreshBooks Data from the Warehouse Catalog

Once you have created a database instance based on the JDBC Driver for FreshBooks, you can connect to data from the Warehouse Catalog.

1. Select your project and click Schema -> Warehouse Catalog.
2. In the Read Settings for the Catalog, click Settings and set the queries to retrieve the schema:
   • To retrieve the list of tables, use the following query: SELECT * FROM SYS_TABLES
   • To retrieve the list of columns for selected tables, use the following query: SELECT DISTINCT CatalogName NAME_SPACE, TableName TAB_NAME, ColumnName COL_NAME, DataTypeName DATA_TYPE, Length DATA_LEN, NumericPrecision DATA_PREC, NumericScale DATA_SCALE FROM SYS_TABLECOLUMNS WHERE TableName IN (#TABLE_LIST#) ORDER BY 1,2,3
3. Select tables to be used in the project.

Using the CData JDBC Driver for FreshBooks in MicroStrategy, you can easily create robust visualizations and reports on FreshBooks data. Read our other articles on connecting to FreshBooks in MictroStrategy Web and connecting to FreshBooks in MicroStrategy Desktop for more information.

Note: Connecting using a JDBC Driver requires a 3- or 4-Tier Architecture.