Excel Spreadsheet Automation with the QUERY Formula

The CData Excel Add-In for QuickBooks Time provides formulas that can query QuickBooks Time data. The following three steps show how you can automate the following task: Search QuickBooks Time data for a user-specified value and then organize the results into an Excel spreadsheet.

The syntax of the CDATAQUERY formula is the following: =CDATAQUERY(Query, [Connection], [Parameters], [ResultLocation]);

This formula requires three inputs:

• Query: The declaration of the QuickBooks Time data records you want to retrieve, written in standard SQL.

• Connection: Either the connection name, such as TSheetsConnection1, or a connection string. The connection string consists of the required properties for connecting to QuickBooks Time data, separated by semicolons.

  TSheets uses the OAuth2 standard for authentication and authorization. To construct your own OAuth app and connect to data, refer to OAuth section in the Help.

• ResultLocation: The cell that the output of results should start from.

Pass Spreadsheet Cells as Inputs to the Query

The procedure below results in a spreadsheet that organizes all the formula inputs in the first column.

1. Define cells for the formula inputs. In addition to the connection inputs, add another input to define a criterion for a filter to be used to search QuickBooks Time data, such as JobCodeType.
2. In another cell, write the formula, referencing the cell values from the user input cells defined above. Single quotes are used to enclose values such as addresses that may contain spaces.
=CDATAQUERY("SELECT * FROM Timesheets WHERE JobCodeType = '"&B4&"'","OAuthClientId="&B1&";OAuthClientSecret="&B2&";CallbackUrl="&B3&";Provider=TSheets",B5)
3. Change the filter to change the data.