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LINQ to QuickBooks Data
LINQ offers versatile querying capabilities within the .NET Framework (v3.0+), offering a straightforward method for programmatic data access through CData ADO.NET Data Providers. In this article, we demonstrate the use of LINQ to retrieve information from the QuickBooks Data Provider.
This article illustrates using LINQ to access tables within the QuickBooks via the CData ADO.NET Data Provider for QuickBooks. To achieve this, we will use LINQ to Entity Framework, which facilitates the generation of connections and can be seamlessly employed with any CData ADO.NET Data Providers to access data through LINQ.
About QuickBooks Data Integration
CData simplifies access and integration of live QuickBooks data. Our customers leverage CData connectivity to:
- Access both local and remote company files.
- Connect across editions and regions: QuickBooks Premier, Professional, Enterprise, and Simple Start edition 2002+, as well as Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and UK editions from 2003+.
- Use SQL stored procedures to perform actions like voiding or clearing transactions, merging lists, searching entities, and more.
Customers regularly integrate their QuickBooks data with preferred tools, like Power BI, Tableau, or Excel, and integrate QuickBooks data into their database or data warehouse.
Getting Started
See the help documentation for a guide to setting up an EF 6 project to use the provider.
- In a new project in Visual Studio, right-click on the project and choose to add a new item. Add an ADO.NET Entity Data Model.
- Choose EF Designer from Database and click Next.
- Add a new Data Connection, and change your data source type to "CData QuickBooks Data Source".
Enter your data source connection information.
When you are connecting to a local QuickBooks instance, you do not need to set any connection properties.
Requests are made to QuickBooks through the Remote Connector. The Remote Connector runs on the same machine as QuickBooks and accepts connections through a lightweight, embedded Web server. The server supports SSL/TLS, enabling users to connect securely from remote machines.
The first time you connect, you will need to authorize the Remote Connector with QuickBooks. See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide.
Below is a typical connection string:
URL=http://remotehost:8166;User=admin;Password=admin123;- If saving your entity connection to App.Config, set an entity name. In this example we are setting QuickBooksEntities as our entity connection in App.Config.
- Enter a model name and select any tables or views you would like to include in the model.
Using the entity you created, you can now perform select , update, delete, and insert commands. For example:
QuickBooksEntities context = new QuickBooksEntities();
var customersQuery = from customers in context.Customers
select customers;
foreach (var result in customersQuery) {
Console.WriteLine("{0} {1} ", result.Id, result.Name);
}
See "LINQ and Entity Framework" chapter in the help documentation for example queries of the supported LINQ.
Ready to get started?
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QuickBooks ADO.NET Provider
Complete read-write access to QuickBooks enables developers to search (Customers, Transactions, Invoices, Sales Receipts, etc.), update items, edit customers, and more, from any .NET application.
