How to Build an ETL App for Reckon Data in Python with CData

The rich ecosystem of Python modules lets you get to work quickly and integrate your systems more effectively. With the CData Python Connector for Reckon and the petl framework, you can build Reckon-connected applications and pipelines for extracting, transforming, and loading Reckon data. This article shows how to connect to Reckon with the CData Python Connector and use petl and pandas to extract, transform, and load Reckon data.

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

Connecting to Reckon Data

Connecting to Reckon data looks just like connecting to any relational data source. Create a connection string using the required connection properties. For this article, you will pass the connection string as a parameter to the create_engine function.

When you are connecting to a local Reckon instance, you do not need to set any connection properties.

Requests to Reckon are made through the Remote Connector. The Remote Connector runs on the same machine as Reckon and accepts connections through a lightweight, embedded Web server. The server supports SSL/TLS, enabling users to connect securely from remote machines.

The first time you connect to your company file, you will need to authorize the Remote Connector with Reckon. See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide.

After installing the CData Reckon Connector, follow the procedure below to install the other required modules and start accessing Reckon through Python objects.

Install Required Modules

Use the pip utility to install the required modules and frameworks:

pip install petl
pip install pandas

Build an ETL App for Reckon Data in Python

Once the required modules and frameworks are installed, we are ready to build our ETL app. Code snippets follow, but the full source code is available at the end of the article.

First, be sure to import the modules (including the CData Connector) with the following:

import petl as etl
import pandas as pd
import cdata.reckon as mod

You can now connect with a connection string. Use the connect function for the CData Reckon Connector to create a connection for working with Reckon data.

cnxn = mod.connect("User=RCUser;Password=RCUserPassword;URL=http://remotehost:8166;")

Create a SQL Statement to Query Reckon

Use SQL to create a statement for querying Reckon. In this article, we read data from the Customers entity.

sql = "SELECT Name, CustomerBalance FROM Customers WHERE Type = 'Commercial'"

Extract, Transform, and Load the Reckon Data

With the query results stored in a DataFrame, we can use petl to extract, transform, and load the Reckon data. In this example, we extract Reckon data, sort the data by the CustomerBalance column, and load the data into a CSV file.

Loading Reckon Data into a CSV File

table1 = etl.fromdb(cnxn,sql)

table2 = etl.sort(table1,'CustomerBalance')

etl.tocsv(table2,'customers_data.csv')

In the following example, we add new rows to the Customers table.

Adding New Rows to Reckon

table1 = [ ['Name','CustomerBalance'], ['NewName1','NewCustomerBalance1'], ['NewName2','NewCustomerBalance2'], ['NewName3','NewCustomerBalance3'] ]

etl.appenddb(table1, cnxn, 'Customers')

With the CData Python Connector for Reckon, you can work with Reckon data just like you would with any database, including direct access to data in ETL packages like petl.

Free Trial & More Information

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData Python Connector for Reckon to start building Python apps and scripts with connectivity to Reckon data. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.

Full Source Code

import petl as etl
import pandas as pd
import cdata.reckon as mod

cnxn = mod.connect("User=RCUser;Password=RCUserPassword;URL=http://remotehost:8166;")

sql = "SELECT Name, CustomerBalance FROM Customers WHERE Type = 'Commercial'"

table1 = etl.fromdb(cnxn,sql)

table2 = etl.sort(table1,'CustomerBalance')

etl.tocsv(table2,'customers_data.csv')

table3 = [ ['Name','CustomerBalance'], ['NewName1','NewCustomerBalance1'], ['NewName2','NewCustomerBalance2'], ['NewName3','NewCustomerBalance3'] ]

etl.appenddb(table3, cnxn, 'Customers')