How to Access Live Xero Data in Power Automate Desktop via ODBC

Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism

The CData ODBC Driver for Xero enables you to integrate Xero data into workflows built using Microsoft Power Automate Desktop.

The CData ODBC Driver for Xero enables you to access live Xero data in workflow automation tools like Power Automate. This article shows how to integrate Xero data into a simple workflow, moving Xero data into a CSV file.

Through optimized data processing, CData ODBC Drivers offer unmatched performance for interacting with live Xero data in Microsoft Power Automate. When you issue complex SQL queries from Power Automate to Xero, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Xero and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (e.g. SQL functions and JOIN operations).

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

Connect to Xero as an ODBC Data Source

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.

To connect, set the Schema connection property in addition to any authentication values. Xero offers authentication for private applications, public applications, and partner applications. Set the XeroAppAuthentication property to PUBLIC, PRIVATE, or PARTNER, depending on the type of application configured. To connect from a private application, you will additionally need to set the OAuthAccessToken, OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, CertificateStoreType, CertificateStore, and CertificateStorePassword.

To connect from a public or partner application, you can use the embedded OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL, or you can register an app to obtain your own OAuth values.

See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide to authenticating to Xero.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing workflows.

Integrate Xero Data into Power Automate Workflows

After configuring the DSN for Xero, you are ready to integrate Xero data into your Power Automate workflows. Open Microsoft Power Automate, add a new flow, and name the flow.

👁 A new flow in Power Automate

In the flow editor, you can add the actions to connect to Xero, query Xero using SQL, and write the query results to a CSV document.

Add an Open SQL Connection Action

Add an "Open SQL connection" action (Actions -> Database) and configure the properties.

Connection string: DSN=CData Xero Source

After configuring the action, click Save.

👁 A configured 'Open SQL connection' action

Add an Execute SQL Statement Action

Add an "Execute SQL statement" action (Actions -> Database) and configure the properties.

Get connection by: SQL connection variable
SQL connection: %SQLConnection% (the variable from the "Open SQL connection" action above)
SQL statement: SELECT * FROM Items

After configuring the action, click Save.

👁 A configured 'Execute SQL statement' action

Add a Write to CSV File Action

Add a "Write to CSV file" action (Actions -> File) and configure the properties.

Variable to write to: %QueryResult% (the variable from the "Execute SQL statement" action above)
File path: set to a file on disk
Configure Advanced settings as needed.

After configuring the action, click Save.

👁 A configured 'Write to CSV file' action

Add a Close SQL Connection Action

Add a "Close SQL connection" action (Actions -> Database) and configure the properties.

SQL Connection: %SQLConnection% (the variable from the "Open SQL connection" action above)

After configuring the action, click Save.

👁 A configured 'Close SQL connection' action

Save & Run the Flow

Once you have configured all the actions for the flow, click the disk icon to save the flow. Click the play icon to run the flow.

👁 A fully configured workflow

Now you have a workflow to move Xero data into a CSV file.

👁 Application data in a CSV file (Salesforce is shown)

With the CData ODBC Driver for Xero, you get live connectivity to Xero data within your Microsoft Power Automate workflows.

URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/xero-odbc-power-automate.rst