Access TaxJar Data in PHP through Connect Server

You can use CData Connect Server to access TaxJar data from SQL Server clients, without needing to perform an ETL or cache data. Follow the steps below to create a virtual SQL Server database for TaxJar and connect to TaxJar data in real time through PHP's standard SQL Server interface, i.e. sqlsrv_connect.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for TaxJar, allowing you to easily build reports from live TaxJar data in PHP — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, PHP generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Server pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to TaxJar, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested TaxJar data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for TaxJar Data

CData Connect Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Login to Connect Server and click Connections.
2. Select "TaxJar" from Available Data Sources.
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to TaxJar.

   To authenticate to the TaxJar API, you will need to 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 Changes
5. Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions.

With the virtual database created, you are ready to connect to TaxJar data from PHP.

Connect in PHP

The following examples show how to use object-oriented interfaces to connect and execute queries. Initialize the connection object with the following parameters to connect to the virtual SQL Server database:

• Server name/Host: Specify the remote host location where the service is running.
• Username: Specify the username for a user you authorized in Connect Server.
• Password: Specify the password for the authorized user account.
• Database Name: Specify the name of the virtual database you created for TaxJar.
• Port: Specify the port the service is running on, port 1433 in this example.

sqlsrv_connect

<?php
$serverName = "connect_server_url, 1433"; //Connect Server Address, portNumber (default is 1433)
$connectionInfo = array( "Database"=>"TaxJar1", "UID"=>"userName", "PWD"=>"password");
$conn = sqlsrv_connect( $serverName, $connectionInfo);

if( $conn ) {
     echo "Connection established.<br>";
}else{
     echo "Connection could not be established.<br>";
     die( print_r( sqlsrv_errors(), true));
}
?>

PDO

<?php
<?php
$user = my_connect_user
$pass = my_connect_pass

$pdo = new PDO("sqlsrv:Server=connect_server_url,1433;Database=TaxJar1", $user , $pass);

?>

Query in PHP

With the connection established, you can then access tables. The following steps walk through the example:

1. Query the table; for example, Orders. The results will be stored as an associative array in the $result object.
2. Iterate over each row and column, printing the values to display in the PHP page.
3. Close the connection.

sqlsrv_connect

$result = $sqlsrv_connect->query("SELECT TransactionID, UserID FROM Orders WHERE TransactionID = '123'");
while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
  foreach ($row as $k=>$v) {
    echo "$k : $v";
    echo "<br>"; 
  }
}
$sqlsrv_connect->close();

PDO

$result = $pdo->query("SELECT TransactionID, UserID FROM Orders WHERE TransactionID = '123'");
while($row = $result->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
  foreach ($row as $k=>$v) {
    echo "$k : $v";
    echo "<br>"; 
  }
}
$result = null;
$pdo = null;

SQL Server Access to TaxJar Data using PHP

You have retrieved live TaxJar Data using PHP. Now, you can easily access data sources and more — all without replicating TaxJar data.

To get SQL data access to 200+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your applications, try CData Connect Server.