How to connect to Blackbaud FE NXT Data from MS Excel on Mac OS X

Microsoft Excel features calculations, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language that allows users to work with data in many of the ways that suit their needs, whether on a Windows machine or a Macintosh machine. This article walks through creating a DSN for Blackbaud FE NXT data in iODBC and accessing Blackbaud FE NXT data in Microsoft Excel, all on a machine running Mac OS X.

Installing the CData ODBC Drivers on Mac OS X

The CData ODBC Driver for Blackbaud FE NXT is preconfigured for the iODBC driver manager, as are many other products like Microsoft Excel. This makes the driver easy to use with these tools.

Licensing the Driver

In a terminal run the following commands to license the driver. To activate a trial license, omit the key input.

cd "/Applications/CData ODBC Driver for Blackbaud FE NXT/bin"
sudo ./install-license <key>

Defining a DSN for iODBC with odbc.ini

You can define ODBC data sources in sections in the odbc.ini file. User data sources can only be accessed by the user account whose home folder the odbc.ini is located in. System data sources can be accessed by all users. You can find the correct odbc.ini in the following paths:

Modifying iODBC's system-wide settings requires elevated permissions; to do so, you can use following to open a text editor from the terminal:

sudo nano /Library/ODBC/odbc.ini

Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, you will need to create an app to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL connection properties.

See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for more information.

When you configure the DSN, 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.

In addition to the connection properties required to connect to Blackbaud FE NXT, the Driver property specifies either a driver definition in the odbcinst.ini file or the path to the driver library. Place your connection properties at the beginning of odbc.ini:

[CData Blackbaud FE NXT Sources]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for Blackbaud FE NXT
SubscriptionKey = MySubscriptionKey

If you wish to authenticate using OAuth, you will need to add an additional connection property to ensure that the OAuth flow can execute properly:

Other = CheckPromptMode=False

Mac OS validates our drivers separately so you need to copy the license file to the appropriate path as well. After you have configured odbc.ini, run the following command.

sudo cp /Applications/CData ODBC Driver for Blackbaud FE NXT/lib/CData.ODBC.FinancialEdgeNXT.lic /Users/<YOUR_USER>/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Excel/Data/.cdata/

Additionally, in the ODBC Data Sources section, the DSN must be set to a driver defined in the odbcinst.ini file. For example, below is the entry for the DSN created during the driver install:

[ODBC Data Sources]
CData Blackbaud FE NXT Source = CData ODBC Driver for Blackbaud FE NXT

Registering a DSN for iODBC with odbcinst.ini

You may need to modify the installed driver definition if you change the path to the driver library. To register an ODBC driver, modify the odbcinst.ini file. With iODBC, drivers can be available to only one user account or drivers can be available system wide. You can find the correct odbcinst.ini in the following paths:

Drivers are defined in sections in the odbcinst.ini file. The section name specifies the name of the driver. In this section, the Driver property specifies the path to the driver library. The driver library is the .dylib file located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory, by default in /Applications/CData ODBC Driver for Blackbaud FE NXT.

[CData ODBC Driver for Blackbaud FE NXT]
Driver = /Applications/CData ODBC Driver for Blackbaud FE NXT/lib/libfinancialedgenxt.odbc.dylib

The ODBC Drivers section must also contain a property with the driver name, set to "Installed".

[ODBC Drivers]
CData ODBC Driver for Blackbaud FE NXT = Installed

Testing the Connection

You can test your connection using the iODBC administrator.

1. Open a terminal and enter the following command to start the iODBC Administrator with the necessary permissions:

   sudo /Applications/iODBC/iODBC\ Administrator64.app/Contents/MacOS/iODBC\ Administrator64
   

2. On the Users tab, select CData Blackbaud FE NXT Source.
3. Click the Test button.

Accessing Blackbaud FE NXT Data from Microsoft Excel

You can use the DSN configured above to access Blackbaud FE NXT data from Microsoft Excel.

1. Open Microsoft Excel and open a spreadsheet (new or existing).
2. Navigate to the data ribbon, click the drop down next to "Get Data (Power Query)," and select "From Database (Microsoft Query)"
3. Select the User or System DSN that you previously configured and click OK.
4. Build your SQL query in the Microsoft Query wizard:
5. Click Return Data to execute the query and pull data into Excel.

Using the CData ODBC Driver for Blackbaud FE NXT, you can easily pull your Blackbaud FE NXT data directly into Excel. Once there, you can leverage all of the powerful features native to Excel to analyze, report, transform your Blackbaud FE NXT data, and more!