DataBind Charts to Xero Data

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Xero ADO.NET Provider

Complete read-write access to Xero accounting enables developers to search (Customers, Transactions, Invoices, Sales Receipts, etc.), update items, edit customers, and more, from any .NET application.

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Use the standard ADO.NET procedures for databinding to provide bidirectional access to Xero data from controls in the Visual Studio toolbox. This article demonstrates a graphical approach using wizards in Visual Studio, as well as how to databind with only a few lines of code.

DataBinding enables bidirectional access to data from UI controls. You can use the CData ADO.NET Provider for Xero to easily databind Xero data to Windows Forms and Web controls in Visual Studio. This article shows how to use wizards to databind Xero data to a chart that reflects any changes. The code walk-through section shows how to create a chart in 10 lines of code.

DataBind to a Chart

DataBinding consists of three steps: Instantiate the control, configure the data source, and databind.

Configure the Connection and Select Database Objects

Follow the procedure below to use the Data Source Configuration Wizard to create a chart control and the connection to Xero. In the wizard, you can select the Xero entities you want to databind.

  1. In a Windows Forms project, drag and drop a Chart control from the toolbox to the form. In the Data section of the Chart properties, select DataSource and then select Add Project Data Source from the menu.
  2. In the Data Source Configuration Wizard that appears, select Database -> Dataset.
  3. In the Choose Your Data Connection step, click New Connection.

  4. In the Add Connection dialog, click Change to select the CData Xero Data Source.

    To connect, set the Schema connection property in addition to any authentication values. Xero offers authentication for private applications, public applications, and partner applications. You will need to set the XeroAppAuthentication property to PUBLIC, PRIVATE, or PARTNER, depending on the type of application configured. To connect from a private application, you will additionally need to set the OAuthAccessToken, OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, CertificateStoreType, CertificateStore, and CertificateStorePassword.

    To connect from a public or partner application, you can use the embedded OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL, or you can register an app to obtain your own OAuth values.

    See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide to authenticating to Xero.

    When you configure the connection, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

  5. Choose the database objects you want to work with. This example uses the Items table.

DataBind

After adding the data source and selecting database objects, you can bind the objects to the chart. This example assigns the x-axis to Name and the y-axis to QuantityOnHand.

  1. In the Chart properties, click the button in the Series property to open the Series Collection Editor.
  2. In the Series properties, select the columns you want for the x- and y-axes: Select columns from the menu in the XValueMember and YValueMember properties.

The chart is now databound to the Xero data. Run the chart to display the current data.

Code Walk-through

DataBinding to Xero data requires only a few lines of code and can be completed in three easy steps.

  1. Connect to Xero.
  2. Create the XeroDataAdapter to execute the query and create a DataSet to be filled with its results.
  3. DataBind the result set to the chart.

Below is the complete code:

XeroConnection conn = new XeroConnection("InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH"); XeroCommand comm = new XeroCommand("SELECT Name, SUM(QuantityOnHand) FROM Items GROUP BY Name", conn); XeroDataAdapter da = new XeroDataAdapter(comm); DataSet dataset = new DataSet(); da.Fill(dataset); chart1.DataSource = dataset; chart1.Series[0].XValueMember = "Name"; chart1.Series[0].YValueMembers = "QuantityOnHand"; // Insert code for additional chart formatting here. chart1.DataBind();