Query Reckon Accounts Hosted 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 ODBC Driver for Reckon Accounts Hosted, you can access live Reckon Accounts Hosted 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 Reckon Accounts Hosted data.

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

Connecting to Reckon Accounts Hosted 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.

The connector makes requests to Reckon Accounts Hosted through OAuth. Specify the following connection properties:

• SubscriptionKey: Required. You get this value when you created your developer account.
• CountryVersion: Defaults to 2021.R2.AU.
• CompanyFile: Required. The path to the company file.
• User: Required. The username of the company file.
• Password: Required. The password of the company file.
• InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH to let the driver handle access tokens.
• CallbackURL: The redirectURI of your Custom OAuth App.
• OAuthClientId: The client id of your Custom OAuth App.
• OAuthClientSecret: The client secret of your Custom OAuth App.

CData provides an embedded OAuth application that simplifies OAuth desktop authentication. See the Help documentation for information on other OAuth authentication methods (web, headless, etc.), creating custom OAuth applications, and reasons for doing so.

Building node-odbc

In order to connect to Reckon Accounts Hosted 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 Reckon Accounts Hosted from Node.js

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

myscript.js

const odbc = require('odbc');

async function queryReckonAccountsHosted() {
    const connection = await odbc.connect(`DSN=CData ReckonAccountsHosted Source`);
    const data = await connection.query('SELECT Name, Balance FROM Accounts');
    console.log(data);
}

queryReckonAccountsHosted();

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

node myscript.js

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