Query Google Forms Data through ODBC in Node.js

Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment that allows you to run JavaScript code outside of a browser. With the CData API Driver for ODBC, you can access live Google Forms data from Node.js apps and scripts. In this article, we walk through installing node-odbc and the required tools to create a simple Node.js app with access to live Google Forms data.

With built-in optimized data processing, the CData ODBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Google Forms data in Node.js. When you issue complex SQL queries from Node.js to Google Forms, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Google Forms and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations).

Connecting to Google Forms Data

If you have not already done so, provide values for the required connection properties in the data source name (DSN). You can use the built-in Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to configure the DSN. This is also the last step of the driver installation. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for a guide to using the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure a DSN.

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

Google Forms API Profile Settings

In the Google Cloud Console, create a project, enable the Google Forms API, and create OAuth 2.0 credentials to obtain your Client ID and Client Secret.

Building node-odbc

In order to connect to Google Forms through the CData ODBC Driver, you need to build node-odbc manually (after installing the required tools).

Installing the Required Tools

The following commands install the tools required to build node-odbc (note the -g parameter, which installs the tools globally).

npm i -g windows-build-tools
npm i -g node-gyp

Building node-odbc

After installing the required tools, create a directory for the Node.js app and install odbc (which builds the binary for us to use in our Node.js script).

mkdir nodeodbc
cd nodeodbc
npm i -g node

Querying Google Forms from Node.js

With the ODBC Driver installed, a DSN Configured, and node-odbc built, we are ready to query live Google Forms data from a Node.js app. The sample code below connects to a specific DSN and queries the Forms table.

myscript.js

const odbc = require('odbc');

async function queryAPI() {
    const connection = await odbc.connect(`DSN=CData API Source`);
    const data = await connection.query('SELECT FormId, Title FROM Forms');
    console.log(data);
}

queryAPI();

Once you write the app, use node to execute the script:

node myscript.js

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData API Driver for ODBC and start working with your live Google Forms data in Node.js. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.