Using the CData ODBC Driver for Avalara AvaTax in PyCharm

The CData ODBC Drivers can be used in any environment that supports loading an ODBC Driver. In this tutorial we will explore using the CData ODBC Driver for Avalara AvaTax from within PyCharm. Included are steps for adding the CData ODBC Driver as a data source, as well as basic PyCharm code to query the data source and display results.

To begin, this tutorial will assume that you have already installed the CData ODBC Driver for Avalara AvaTax as well as PyCharm.

Add Pyodbc to the Project

Follow the steps below to add the pyodbc module to your project.

1. Click File -> Settings to open the project settings window.
2. Click Project Interpreter from the Project: YourProjectName menu.
3. To add pyodbc, click the + button and enter pyodbc.
4. Click Install Package to install pyodbc.

Connect to Avalara AvaTax

You can now connect with an ODBC connection string or a DSN. See the Getting Started section in the CData driver documentation for a guide to creating a DSN on your OS.

The primary method for performing basic authentication is to provide your login credentials, as follows:

• User: Set this to your username.
• Password: Set this to your password.

Optionally, if you are making use of a sandbox environment, set the following:

• UseSandbox: Set this to true if you are authenticating with a sandbox account.

Authenticating Using Account Number and License Key

Alternatively, you can authenticate using your account number and license key. Connect to data using the following:

• AccountId: Set this to your Account Id. The Account Id is listed in the upper right hand corner of the admin console.
• LicenseKey: Set this to your Avalara Avatax license key. You can generate a license key by logging into Avalara Avatax as an account administrator and navigating to Settings -> Reset License Key.

Below is the syntax for a DSN:

[CData AvalaraAvatax Source]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for Avalara AvaTax
Description = My Description
User = MyUser
Password = MyPassword

Execute SQL to Avalara AvaTax

Instantiate a Cursor and use the execute method of the Cursor class to execute any SQL statement.

import pyodbc

cnxn = pyodbc.connect('DRIVER={CData ODBC Driver for AvalaraAvatax};User = MyUser;Password = MyPassword;')
cursor = cnxn.cursor()
cursor.execute("SELECT Id, TotalTax FROM Transactions WHERE Code = '051349'")
rows = cursor.fetchall()
for row in rows:
 print(row.Id, row.TotalTax)

After connecting to Avalara AvaTax in PyCharm using the CData ODBC Driver, you will be able to build Python apps with access to Avalara AvaTax data as if it were a standard database. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback regarding this tutorial, please contact us at [email protected].