Analyze FreshBooks Data in Infragistics Reveal

Reveal is a data visualization solution provided by Infragistics and can be paired with the CData API Server to build dynamic dashboards from live FreshBooks data. The CData API Server generates an OData API for FreshBooks, which is natively consumable in Reveal. In this article, we walk through connecting to FreshBooks in API Server and connecting to the API Server from Infragistics Reveal to create a simple dashboard.

Connect to FreshBooks from API Server

CData API Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Open API Server and click Settings -> Connection -> Add Connection
2. Select "FreshBooks"
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to FreshBooks.

   Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the FreshBooks Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\FreshBooks.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for FreshBooks (see below).

   FreshBooks API Profile Settings

   Register an OAuth application in your FreshBooks Developer Dashboard to obtain a Client ID and Client Secret, and configure the redirect URI to match your application's callback URL.

   

Add FreshBooks Resource Definitions in API Server

After connecting to FreshBooks, create Resources, which represent API endpoints for FreshBooks data.

1. Click Settings -> Resources -> Add Resource
2. Select the FreshBooks connection
3. Select the table you wish to retrieve and click Next
4. (Optional) Edit the resource to select specific fields and more
5. Save the settings

Add an API Server User

Create a User to connect to FreshBooks from Reveal through API Server.

1. Click Settings -> Users
2. Click Add
3. Configure a User with access to the FreshBooks Connection and Resource(s)

(Optional) Configure Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)

When accessing and connecting to multiple different domains from an application such as Ajax, there is a possibility of violating the limitations of cross-site scripting. In that case, configure the CORS settings in Settings -> Server.

• Enable cross-origin resource sharing (CORS): ON
• Allow all domains without '*': ON
• Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, PUT, POST, OPTIONS
• Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization

Save the changes to the settings.

Create a Dashboard in Reveal

With the API Server configured, we can visualize FreshBooks data in Reveal.

1. Log into Reveal and click Dashboards -> New
2. Click Data Source -> OData Feed
3. Specify the API Server API endpoint URL, for example: https://serverurl/api.rsc
4. Select Generic Credentials and specify the API Server username and authentication token
5. Select the entity you wish to visualize
6. Select fields and choose a chart type

More Information & Free Trial

At this point, you have created a simple dashboard from live FreshBooks data. For more information on creating OData feeds from FreshBooks (and more than 150 other sources), visit the API Server page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live FreshBooks data in tools that consume OData APIs.