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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/xero-cloud-power-query.rst

⇱ Work with Live Xero Data in Power Query

Work with Live Xero Data in Power Query

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Use CData Connect AI to connect to Xero data and work with live Xero data in Microsoft Power Query.

Power Query is a data transformation and data preparation engine. When paired with CData Connect AI, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Xero data from Power Query. This article shows how to connect to Connect AI from Power Query through Microsoft Excel and get live access to Xero data for transformation and preparation.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL, cloud-to-cloud interface for Xero, allowing you to easily integrate with live Xero data in Power Query — without replicating the data. CData Connect AI looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Power Query and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Xero, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Xero data.

About Xero Data Integration

Accessing and integrating live data from Xero has never been easier with CData. Customers rely on CData connectivity to:

  • Connect to Xero Accounts and both US and Australian Payroll APIs.
  • Read, write, update, and delete Xero objects like Customers, Transactions, Invoices, Sales Receipts and more.
  • Use SQL stored procedures for actions like adding items to a cart, submitting orders, and downloading attachments.
  • Work with accounting, payroll, file, fixed asset, and project data.

Customers regularly integrate their Xero data with preferred tools, like Tableau, Qlik Sense, or Excel, and integrate Xero data into their database or data warehouse.


Getting Started


Configure Xero Connectivity for Power Query

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

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
    2. 👁 Adding a Connection
  2. Select "Xero" from the Add Connection panel
    3. 👁 Selecting a data source
  3. Xero uses OAuth to authenticate. Click "Sign in" to authenticate with Xero. 👁 Authenticating with OAuth (Salesforce is shown).
  4. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Xero Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

  1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
  2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
  3. Give the PAT a name and click Create. 👁 Creating a new PAT
  4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to Xero data from Power Query.

Working with Live Xero Data in Power Query

With the connection to Connect AI configured, you are ready to work with live Xero data in Power Query.

  1. In Microsoft Excel, open the Power Query Editor (from the Data ribbon, click Get Data -> Launch Power Query Editor) 👁 Opening the Power Query Editor
  2. Click New Source -> SQL Server 👁 Creating a new SQL Server Source
  3. In the SQL Server database modal:
    • Set Server to tds.cdata.com,14333
    • (Optional) Set Database to the name of the Xero connection (e.g. Xero1 )
    👁 Configuring the Server
  4. In the SQL Server credentials modal, select "Database" and
    • Set User to your Connect AI username (e.g. [email protected] )
    • Set Password to the PAT for the above user
    👁 Configuring the credentials
  5. Click Connect
  6. Select the table(s) you wish to work with in the Navigator and click "OK" 👁 Selecting the table(s) (Salesforce is shown)

At this point, you have live access to Xero data from Power Query for transformation and preparation.

👁 Working with data in Power Query (Salesforce is shown)

SQL Access to Xero Data

Now you have a direct connection to live Xero data from Microsoft Power Query. You can create more connections and transform and preparte your data to better drive business — all without replicating Xero data.

To get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, sign up for a free trial of CData Connect AI.