Query TaxJar 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 TaxJar, you can access live TaxJar 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 TaxJar data.

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

Connecting to TaxJar 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.

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.

Building node-odbc

In order to connect to TaxJar 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 TaxJar from Node.js

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

myscript.js

const odbc = require('odbc');

async function queryTaxJar() {
    const connection = await odbc.connect(`DSN=CData TaxJar Source`);
    const data = await connection.query('SELECT TransactionID, UserID FROM Orders');
    console.log(data);
}

queryTaxJar();

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 TaxJar and start working with your live TaxJar data in Node.js. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.