Access Live FreshBooks Data in Excel (Desktop) via Connect AI

Microsoft Excel is a widely used spreadsheet software application, primarily used for tasks related to data management, analysis, and visualization. When combined with CData Connect AI, you gain immediate access to FreshBooks data directly within Excel, facilitating data analysis, collaboration, calculations, and more.This article shows how to connect to FreshBooks in your Connect AI instance and access live FreshBooks data in Excel spreadsheets.

CData Connect AI provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for FreshBooks, allowing you to easily access live FreshBooks data in Excel for the web. Simply use the Connect AI Add-In to query live data (or write your own). Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported query operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to FreshBooks, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return FreshBooks data.

Configure FreshBooks Connectivity for Excel

Connectivity to FreshBooks from Excel is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with FreshBooks data from Excel, we start by creating and configuring a FreshBooks connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "FreshBooks" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to FreshBooks.

   To connect to FreshBooks, register an OAuth application at my.freshbooks.com/#/developer. Set the Redirect URI to https://oauth.cdata.com/oauth/. Copy the Client Id and Client Secret from the App Settings section (admin access required). Then set the following:

   • OAuth Client Id: Set this to the Client Id from your FreshBooks application.
   • OAuth Client Secret: Set this to the Client Secret from your FreshBooks application.

   Click Sign In to complete OAuth authentication.

   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add FreshBooks Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to FreshBooks data from Excel.

Access Live FreshBooks Data in Excel

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Excel to access live FreshBooks data.

1. Open Excel, create a new sheet (or open an existing one).
2. Click Insert and click Get Add-ins. (if you have already installed the Add-In, jump to step 4).
3. Search for CData Connect AI Add-In and install the Add-in.
4. Click Data and open the CData Connect AI Add-In.
5. In the Add-In panel, click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect AI instance
6. In the CData Connect AI panel in Excel, click Import
7. Choose a Connection (e.g. API1), Table (e.g. Invoices), and Columns to import
8. Optionally add Filters, Sorting, and a Limit
9. Click Execute to import the data

Live Access to FreshBooks Data from Cloud Applications

Now, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live FreshBooks data from your Excel workbook. You can add more data to your workbook for calculations, aggregations, collaboration, and more.

Try CData Connect AI and get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.