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Query Exact Online Data from Node.js
The API Server exposes Web services that allow connectivity to your data. Use the OData endpoint of the CData API Server to execute CRUD queries to Exact Online data from Node.js.
The CData API Server, when paired with the ADO.NET Provider for Exact Online, exposes Exact Online data (or data from any of 200+ other ADO.NET Providers) as an OData endpoint, which can be queried from Node.js using simple HTTP requests. This article shows how to use the API Server to request JSON-formatted Exact Online data in Node.js.
Set Up the API Server
Follow the steps below to begin producing secure Exact Online OData services:
Deploy
The API Server runs on your own server. On Windows, you can deploy using the stand-alone server or IIS. On a Java servlet container, drop in the API Server WAR file. See the help documentation for more information and how-tos.
The API Server is also easy to deploy on Microsoft Azure, Amazon EC2, and Heroku.
Connect to Exact Online
After you deploy the API Server and the ADO.NET Provider for Exact Online, provide authentication values and other connection properties needed to connect to Exact Online by clicking Settings -> Connections and adding a new connection in the API Server administration console.
Exact Online uses the OAuth authentication standard. The InitiateOAuth connection property facilitates the OAuth flow -- by default, this is set to GETANDREFRESH. You can also use the embedded OAuth credentials or you can register an OAuth app with Exact to obtain your own. In addition to the OAuth values, provide the Region. If Division is not set, the default Division is determined.
See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for more information.
You can then choose the Exact Online entities you want to allow the API Server access to by clicking Settings -> Resources.
Authorize API Server Users
After determining the OData services you want to produce, authorize users by clicking Settings -> Users. The API Server uses authtoken-based authentication and supports the major authentication schemes. Access can also be restricted based on IP address; all IP addresses except the local machine are restricted by default. You can authenticate as well as encrypt connections with SSL.
Consume Exact Online OData Feeds from Node.js
OData feeds are easy to work with in Node.js. You can use the HTTP client in Node.js to request JSON-formatted data from the API Server's OData endpoint. After making the request, you can construct the body of the response and call the JSON.parse() function to parse it into records.
The code below will make an authenticated request for Accounts data. The example URL below applies a simple filter that searches for records with a value of False in the IsCompetitor column.
var http = require('http');
http.get({
protocol: "http:",
hostname: "MyServer.com",
port: MyPort,
path: "/api.rsc/Accounts?$filter=" + encodeURIComponent("IsCompetitor eq 'False'"),
auth: 'MyUser:MyAuthtoken'
},
function(res) {
var body = '';
res.on('data', function(chunk) {
body += chunk;
});
res.on('end', function() {
console.log(body);
var jsonData = JSON.parse(body);
});
}).on('error', function(e) {
console.log("Error: ", e);
});
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