You can create and manage connections with the Data Explorer and the FireDAC Connection Editor wizards. See Connection Definitions for more information on creating connections from code and creating persistent, private, or temporary connections.

Authenticating to Zoho Books

Zoho Books uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, you will need to create an app to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL connection properties. See Using OAuth Authentication for an authentication guide.

Using the FireDAC Connection Editor

Complete the following steps to use the FireDAC Connection Editor to assign a Zoho Books connection to a TFDConnection object:

1. Open a project and drop a TFDPhysCDataZohoBooksDriverLink from the Tool Palette onto the Form Designer.
2. Drop a TFDConnection object onto the Form Designer.
3. Double-click the TFDConnection and select CDataZohoBooks in the Driver Id menu.
4. Define the necessary connection properties.
5. To execute ad-hoc SQL statements based on this connection, enter SQL commands on the SQL Script tab.
6. In the Form Designer, select the TFDConnection object and set the Connected property to true.

Using the Data Explorer

Complete the following steps to use the Data Explorer to define persistent connections that can be shared across applications and projects:

1. Click View > Tool Windows > Data Explorer in RAD Studio and expand the FireDAC node.
2. Right-click the CData Zoho Books Data Source node and click Add New Connection.
3. Enter a name for the connection. The FireDAC Connection Editor opens.

Working with Persistent Connections

The connections you define in the Data Explorer can be assigned to a TFDConnection object by specifying the connection name in the TFDConnection object's ConnectionDefName property.

Browsing Data and Metadata

The Data Explorer also provides options for browsing Zoho Books objects at design time:

• Expand the CData Zoho Books Data Source node in the Data Explorer to view the defined connections.
• Expand a connection node to find the database objects available for a connection.
• Drill down to a database object to find metadata such as primary keys.
• To display data, double-click a table or view or right-click and click View.