Using the CData ODBC Driver for Freshdesk 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 Freshdesk 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 Freshdesk 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 Freshdesk

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.

FreshDesk makes use of basic authentication. To connect to data, set the following connection properties:

• Domain: Set this to the domain associated with your FreshDesk account. For example, in your URL: https://my_domain.freshdesk.com.
• APIKey: Set this to the API key associated with your FreshDesk account. To retrieve your API key, Log into your support Portal -> Click on profile picture in the top right corner -> profile settings page. The API key will be available below the change password section to the right.

Below is the syntax for a DSN:

[CData FreshDesk Source]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for Freshdesk
Description = My Description
Domain = MyDomain
APIKey = myAPIKey

Execute SQL to Freshdesk

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 FreshDesk};Domain = MyDomain;APIKey = myAPIKey;')
cursor = cnxn.cursor()
cursor.execute("SELECT Id, Name FROM Tickets WHERE Status = '2'")
rows = cursor.fetchall()
for row in rows:
 print(row.Id, row.Name)

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