Work with Live TaxJar Data in Power Query

Power Query is a data transformation and data preparation engine. When paired with CData Connect AI, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to TaxJar data from Power Query. This article shows how to connect to Connect AI from Power Query through Microsoft Excel and get live access to TaxJar data for transformation and preparation.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL, cloud-to-cloud interface for TaxJar, allowing you to easily integrate with live TaxJar data in Power Query — without replicating the data. CData Connect AI looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Power Query and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to TaxJar, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return TaxJar data.

Configure TaxJar Connectivity for Power Query

Connectivity to TaxJar from Power Query is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with TaxJar data from Power Query, we start by creating and configuring a TaxJar connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "TaxJar" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to TaxJar.

   To authenticate to the TaxJar API, first obtain the API Key from the TaxJar UI.

   NOTE: the API is available only for Professional and Premium TaxJar plans.

   If you already have a Professional or Premium plan you can find the API Key by logging in the TaxJar UI and navigating to Account -> TaxJar API. After obtaining the API Key, you can set it in the APIKey connection property.

   Additional Notes

   • By default, the CData connector will retrieve data of the last 3 months in cases where the entity support date range filtering. You can set StartDate to specify the minimum creation date of the data retrieved.
   • If the API Key has been created for a sandbox API account please set UseSandbox to true, but not all endpoints will work as expected. For more information, refer to the TaxJar developer documentation.
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add TaxJar Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to TaxJar data from Power Query.

Working with Live TaxJar Data in Power Query

With the connection to Connect AI configured, you are ready to work with live TaxJar data in Power Query.

1. In Microsoft Excel, open the Power Query Editor (from the Data ribbon, click Get Data -> Launch Power Query Editor)
2. Click New Source -> SQL Server
3. In the SQL Server database modal:
   • Set Server to tds.cdata.com,14333
   • (Optional) Set Database to the name of the TaxJar connection (e.g. TaxJar1 )
   
4. In the SQL Server credentials modal, select "Database" and
   • Set User to your Connect AI username (e.g. [email protected] )
   • Set Password to the PAT for the above user
   
5. Click Connect
6. Select the table(s) you wish to work with in the Navigator and click "OK"

At this point, you have live access to TaxJar data from Power Query for transformation and preparation.

SQL Access to TaxJar Data

Now you have a direct connection to live TaxJar data from Microsoft Power Query. You can create more connections and transform and preparte your data to better drive business — all without replicating TaxJar data.

To get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, sign up for a free trial of CData Connect AI.