Access Live FreshBooks Data in TIBCO Data Virtualization

TIBCO Data Virtualization (TDV) is an enterprise data virtualization solution that orchestrates access to multiple and varied data sources. When paired with the CData TIBCO DV Adapter for FreshBooks, you get federated access to live FreshBooks data directly within TIBCO Data Virtualization. This article walks through deploying an adapter and creating a new data source based on FreshBooks.

With built-in optimized data processing, the CData TIBCO DV Adapter offers unmatched performance for interacting with live FreshBooks data. When you issue complex SQL queries to FreshBooks, the adapter pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to FreshBooks. Its built-in dynamic metadata querying allows you to work with and analyze FreshBooks data using native data types.

Deploy the FreshBooks TIBCO DV Adapter

1. In a console, navigate to the bin folder in the TDV Server installation directory. If there is a current version of the adapter installed, you will need to undeploy it.

   .\server_util.bat -server localhost -user admin -password ******** -undeploy -version 1 -name FreshBooks
   

2. Extract the CData TIBCO DV Adapter to a local folder and deploy the JAR file (tdv.freshbooks.jar) to the server from the extract location.

   .\server_util.bat -server localhost -user admin -password ******** -deploy -package /PATH/TO/tdv.freshbooks.jar
   

You may need to restart the server to ensure the new JAR file is loaded properly, which can be accomplished by running the composite.bat script located at: C:\Program Files\TIBCO\TDV Server <version>\bin. Note that reauthenticating to the TDV Studio is required after restarting the server.

Sample Restart Call

.\composite.bat monitor restart

Create a FreshBooks Data Source in TDV Studio

With the CData TIBCO DV Adapter for FreshBooks, you can easily create a data source for FreshBooks and introspect the data source to add resources to TDV.

Create the Data Source

1. Right-click on the folder you wish to add the data source to and select New -> New Data Source.
2. Scroll until you find the adapter (e.g. FreshBooks) and click Next.
3. Name the data source (e.g. CData FreshBooks Source).

4. Fill in the required connection properties.

   To connect to FreshBooks, you can set the CompanyName and Token connection properties. Alternatively, you can use the OAuth authentication standard.

   OAuth can be used to enable other users to access their own company data. To authenticate using OAuth, you will need to obtain the OAuthClientId and OAuthClientSecret by registering an app. See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

5. Click Create & Close.

Introspect the Data Source

Once the data source is created, you can introspect the data source by right-clicking and selecting Open. In the dashboard, click Add/Remove Resources and select the Tables, Views, and Stored Procedures to include as part of the data source. Click Next and Finish to add the selected FreshBooks tables, views, and stored procedures as resources.

After creating and introspecting the data source, you are ready to work with FreshBooks data in TIBCO Data Virtualization just like you would any other relational data source. You can create views, query using SQL, publish the data source, and more.