Using the CData ODBC Driver for Blackbaud FE NXT 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 Blackbaud FE NXT 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 Blackbaud FE NXT 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 Blackbaud FE NXT

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.

Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, create an app to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL connection properties.

See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for more information.

Below is the syntax for a DSN:

[CData FinancialEdgeNXT Source]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for Blackbaud FE NXT
Description = My Description
SubscriptionKey = MySubscriptionKey
InitiateOAuth = GETANDREFRESH

Execute SQL to Blackbaud FE NXT

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 FinancialEdgeNXT};SubscriptionKey = MySubscriptionKey;InitiateOAuth = GETANDREFRESH;')
cursor = cnxn.cursor()
cursor.execute("SELECT AccountId, AccountNumber FROM Accounts WHERE ModifiedBy = 'System'")
rows = cursor.fetchall()
for row in rows:
 print(row.AccountId, row.AccountNumber)

After connecting to Blackbaud FE NXT in PyCharm using the CData ODBC Driver, you will be able to build Python apps with access to Blackbaud FE NXT 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].