Connect to QuickBooks Online Data in Ruby

The CData ODBC Driver for QuickBooks Online makes it easy to integrate connectivity to live QuickBooks Online data in Ruby. This article shows how to create a simple Ruby app that connects to QuickBooks Online data, executes a query, and displays the results.

Getting Started

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Create an ODBC Connection to QuickBooks Online Data

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

QuickBooks Online uses the OAuth authentication standard. OAuth requires the authenticating user to log in through the browser. To authenticate using OAuth, you can use the embedded OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL or you can obtain your own by registering an app with Intuit. Additionally, if you want to connect to sandbox data, set UseSandbox to true.

See the Getting Started chapter of the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

Installing Ruby and Necessary Gems

If you do not have Ruby installed, refer to the Ruby installation page. With Ruby installed, you will need to install the ruby-dbi, dbd-odbc, and ruby-odbc gems:

gem install dbi
gem install dbd-odbc
gem install ruby-odbc

Create a Ruby App with Connectivity to QuickBooks Online Data

Create a new Ruby file (for example: QuickBooksOnlineSelect.rb) and open it in a text editor. Copy the following code into your file:

#connect to the DSN
require 'dbi'
cnxn = DBI.connect('DBI:ODBC:CData QuickBooksOnline Source','','')

#execute a SELECT query and store the result set
resultSet = cnxn.execute("SELECT DisplayName, Balance FROM Customers")

#display the names of the columns
resultSet.column_names.each do |name|
 print name, "\t"
end
puts

#display the results
while row = resultSet.fetch do
 (0..resultSet.column_names.size - 1).each do |n|
 print row[n], "\t"
 end
 puts
end
resultSet.finish

#close the connection
cnxn.disconnect if cnxn

With the file completed, you are ready to display your QuickBooks Online data with Ruby. To do so, simply run your file from the command line:

ruby QuickBooksOnlineSelect.rb

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