Pipe FreshBooks Data to CSV in PowerShell

The CData Cmdlets Module for FreshBooks is a standard PowerShell module offering straightforward integration with FreshBooks. Below, you will find examples of using our FreshBooks Cmdlets with native PowerShell cmdlets.

Creating a Connection to Your FreshBooks Data

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.

$conn = Connect-FreshBooks  -CompanyName "$CompanyName" -Token "$Token"

Selecting Data

Follow the steps below to retrieve data from the Clients table and pipe the result into to a CSV file:

Select-FreshBooks -Connection $conn -Table Clients | Select -Property * -ExcludeProperty Connection,Table,Columns | Export-Csv -Path c:\myClientsData.csv -NoTypeInformation

You will notice that we piped the results from Select-FreshBooks into a Select-Object cmdlet and excluded some properties before piping them into an Export-Csv cmdlet. We do this because the CData Cmdlets append Connection, Table, and Columns information onto each "row" in the result set, and we do not necessarily want that information in our CSV file.

Deleting Data

The following line deletes any records that match the criteria:

Select-FreshBooks -Connection $conn -Table Clients -Where "Email = Captain Hook" | Remove-FreshBooks

Inserting and Updating Data

The cmdlets make data transformation easy as well as data cleansing. The following example loads data from a CSV file into FreshBooks, checking first whether a record already exists and needs to be updated instead of inserted.

Import-Csv -Path C:\MyClientsUpdates.csv | %{
  $record = Select-FreshBooks -Connection $FreshBooks -Table Clients -Where ("Id = `'"+$_.Id+"`'")
  if($record){
    Update-FreshBooks -Connection $freshbooks -Table Clients -Columns ("Username","Credit") -Values ($_.Username, $_.Credit) -Where ("Id = `'"+$_.Id+"`'")
  }else{
    Add-FreshBooks -Connection $freshbooks -Table Clients -Columns ("Username","Credit") -Values ($_.Username, $_.Credit)
  }
}

As always, our goal is to simplify the way you connect to data. With cmdlets users can install a data module, set the connection properties, and start building. Download Cmdlets and start working with your data in PowerShell today!