Using the CData ODBC Driver for Halo Service Desk in PyCharm

The CData ODBC Drivers can be used in any environment that supports loading an ODBC Driver. In this tutorial we will explore using the CData ODBC Driver for Halo Service Desk from within PyCharm. Included are steps for adding the CData ODBC Driver as a data source, as well as basic PyCharm code to query the data source and display results.

To begin, this tutorial will assume that you have already installed the CData ODBC Driver for Halo Service Desk as well as PyCharm.

Add Pyodbc to the Project

Follow the steps below to add the pyodbc module to your project.

1. Click File -> Settings to open the project settings window.
2. Click Project Interpreter from the Project: YourProjectName menu.
3. To add pyodbc, click the + button and enter pyodbc.
4. Click Install Package to install pyodbc.

Connect to Halo Service Desk

You can now connect with an ODBC connection string or a DSN. See the Getting Started section in the CData driver documentation for a guide to creating a DSN on your OS.

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

HaloServiceDesk API Profile Settings

HaloServiceDesk uses API key authentication. You can find or create API keys in HaloServiceDesk under Administration > Integrations > Halo API.

Set the following connection properties to connect:

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
• APIKey: Set this to the API key from your HaloServiceDesk account.
• Domain: Set this to the hostname of your HaloServiceDesk instance (e.g. yourcompany.haloservicedesk.com).

Below is the syntax for a DSN:

[CData API Source]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for Halo Service Desk
Description = My Description
Profile = C:\profiles\HaloServiceDesk.apip
AuthScheme = APIKey
ProfileSettings = 'APIKey = your_api_key
Domain = yourcompany.haloservicedesk.com'

Execute SQL to Halo Service Desk

Instantiate a Cursor and use the execute method of the Cursor class to execute any SQL statement.

import pyodbc

cnxn = pyodbc.connect('DRIVER={CData ODBC Driver for API};Profile = C:\profiles\HaloServiceDesk.apip;AuthScheme = APIKey;ProfileSettings = 'APIKey = your_api_key;Domain = yourcompany.haloservicedesk.com';')
cursor = cnxn.cursor()
cursor.execute("SELECT Id, InventoryNumber FROM Assets WHERE ClientId = '1'")
rows = cursor.fetchall()
for row in rows:
  print(row.Id, row.InventoryNumber)

After connecting to Halo Service Desk in PyCharm using the CData ODBC Driver, you will be able to build Python apps with access to Halo Service Desk data as if it were a standard database. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback regarding this tutorial, please contact us at [email protected].