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Query Harvest Data from Node.js
The API Server exposes Web services that allow connectivity to your data. Use the OData endpoint of the CData API Server to execute CRUD queries to Harvest data from Node.js.
The CData API Server, when paired with the ADO.NET Provider for Harvest, exposes Harvest data (or data from any of 200+ other ADO.NET Providers) as an OData endpoint, which can be queried from Node.js using simple HTTP requests. This article shows how to use the API Server to request JSON-formatted Harvest data in Node.js.
Set Up the API Server
Follow the steps below to begin producing secure Harvest OData services:
Deploy
The API Server runs on your own server. On Windows, you can deploy using the stand-alone server or IIS. On a Java servlet container, drop in the API Server WAR file. See the help documentation for more information and how-tos.
The API Server is also easy to deploy on Microsoft Azure, Amazon EC2, and Heroku.
Connect to Harvest
After you deploy the API Server and the ADO.NET Provider for Harvest, provide authentication values and other connection properties needed to connect to Harvest by clicking Settings -> Connections and adding a new connection in the API Server administration console.
Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Harvest Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Harvest.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Harvest (see below).
Harvest API Profile Settings
To authenticate to Harvest, you can use either Token authentication or the OAuth standard. Use Basic authentication to connect to your own data. Use OAuth to allow other users to connect to their data.
Using Token Authentication
To use Token Authentication, set the APIKey to your Harvest Personal Access Token in the ProfileSettings connection property. In addition to APIKey, set your AccountId in ProfileSettings to connect.
Using OAuth Authentication
First, register an OAuth2 application with Harvest. The application can be created from the "Developers" section of Harvest ID.
After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:
- ProfileSettings: Set your AccountId in ProfileSettings.
- AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
- OAuthClientId: Set this to the client ID that you specified in your app settings.
- OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client secret that you specified in your app settings.
- CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI that you specified in your app settings.
- InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage how the driver obtains and refreshes the OAuthAccessToken.
You can then choose the Harvest entities you want to allow the API Server access to by clicking Settings -> Resources.
Authorize API Server Users
After determining the OData services you want to produce, authorize users by clicking Settings -> Users. The API Server uses authtoken-based authentication and supports the major authentication schemes. Access can also be restricted based on IP address; all IP addresses except the local machine are restricted by default. You can authenticate as well as encrypt connections with SSL.
Consume Harvest OData Feeds from Node.js
OData feeds are easy to work with in Node.js. You can use the HTTP client in Node.js to request JSON-formatted data from the API Server's OData endpoint. After making the request, you can construct the body of the response and call the JSON.parse() function to parse it into records.
The code below will make an authenticated request for Invoices data. The example URL below applies a simple filter that searches for records with a value of open in the State column.
var http = require('http');
http.get({
protocol: "http:",
hostname: "MyServer.com",
port: MyPort,
path: "/api.rsc/Invoices?$filter=" + encodeURIComponent("State eq 'open'"),
auth: 'MyUser:MyAuthtoken'
},
function(res) {
var body = '';
res.on('data', function(chunk) {
body += chunk;
});
res.on('end', function() {
console.log(body);
var jsonData = JSON.parse(body);
});
}).on('error', function(e) {
console.log("Error: ", e);
});
