Query Zoho Inventory Data through ODBC in Node.js

Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment that allows you to run JavaScript code outside of a browser. With the CData ODBC Driver for Zoho Inventory, you can access live Zoho Inventory data from Node.js apps and scripts. In this article, we walk through installing node-odbc and the required tools to create a simple Node.js app with access to live Zoho Inventory data.

With built-in optimized data processing, the CData ODBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Zoho Inventory data in Node.js. When you issue complex SQL queries from Node.js to Zoho Inventory, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Zoho Inventory and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations).

Connecting to Zoho Inventory Data

If you have not already done so, provide values for the required connection properties in the data source name (DSN). You can use the built-in Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to configure the DSN. This is also the last step of the driver installation. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for a guide to using the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure a DSN.

In order to connect to Zoho Inventory, set the following connection properties:

• OrganizationId: set this to the ID associated with your specific Zoho Inventory organization
• InitiateOAuth: set the to "GETANDREFRESH"
• AccountsServer (Optional): set this full Account Server URL (only when manually refreshing the OAuth token)

The connectors use OAuth to authenticate with Zoho Inventory. For more information, refer to the Getting Started section of the Help documentation.

Building node-odbc

In order to connect to Zoho Inventory through the CData ODBC Driver, you need to build node-odbc manually (after installing the required tools).

Installing the Required Tools

The following commands install the tools required to build node-odbc (note the -g parameter, which installs the tools globally).

npm i -g windows-build-tools
npm i -g node-gyp

Building node-odbc

After installing the required tools, create a directory for the Node.js app and install odbc (which builds the binary for us to use in our Node.js script).

mkdir nodeodbc
cd nodeodbc
npm i -g node

Querying Zoho Inventory from Node.js

With the ODBC Driver installed, a DSN Configured, and node-odbc built, we are ready to query live Zoho Inventory data from a Node.js app. The sample code below connects to a specific DSN and queries the Contacts table.

myscript.js

const odbc = require('odbc');

async function queryZohoInventory() {
    const connection = await odbc.connect(`DSN=CData ZohoInventory Source`);
    const data = await connection.query('SELECT Id, CustomerName FROM Contacts');
    console.log(data);
}

queryZohoInventory();

Once you write the app, use node to execute the script:

node myscript.js

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData ODBC Driver for Zoho Inventory and start working with your live Zoho Inventory data in Node.js. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.