Establishing a Connection

With the CData Cmdlets users can install a data module, set the connection properties, and start scripting. This section provides examples of using our ZohoBooks Cmdlets with native PowerShell cmdlets, like the CSV import and export cmdlets.

Installing and Connecting

If you have PSGet, installing the cmdlets can be accomplished from the PowerShell Gallery with the following command. You can also obtain a setup from the CData site.

Install-Module ZohoBooksCmdlets

The following line is then added to your profile, loading the cmdlets on the next session:

Import-Module ZohoBooksCmdlets;

You can then use the Connect-ZohoBooks cmdlet to create a connection object that can be passed to other cmdlets:

$conn = Connect-ZohoBooks -InitiateOAuth "GETANDREFRESH" -OrganizationId "YourOrganizationId"

Connecting to Zoho Books

You can refine the exact Zoho Books data retrieved using the following connection properties:

OrganizationId (optional): The Id associated with the specific Zoho Books organization that you wish to connect to.
- If the value of Organization Id is not specified in the connection string, then the cmdlet automatically retrieves all available organizations and selects the first organization Id as the default.
AccountsServer (optional): The full Account Server URL. Most of the time, the value of this property will be https://books.zoho.com, but if your account resides in a different location, then the domain should change accordingly (.eu, .in, .com.au, ...).

Authenticating to Zoho Books

Zoho Books uses the OAuth authentication standard. The cmdlet supports OAuth authentication for instances of the cmdlet running on your local machine, a web service, or on a headless machine.

Desktop Applications

CData provides an embedded OAuth application that simplifies OAuth desktop Authentication. Alternatively, you can create a custom OAuth application. See Creating a Custom OAuth App for information about creating custom applications and reasons for doing so.

Get and Refresh the OAuth Access Token

After setting the following, you are ready to connect:

InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
OAuthClientId (custom applications only): Set this to the client Id assigned when you registered your application.
OAuthClientSecret (custom applications only): Set this to the client secret assigned when you registered your application.
CallbackURL (custom application only): Set this to the redirect URI defined when you registered your application.

When you connect, the cmdlet opens Zoho Books's OAuth endpoint in your default browser. Log in and grant permissions to the application. The cmdlet then completes the OAuth process:

The cmdlet obtains an access token from Zoho Books and uses it to request data.
The OAuth values are saved in the path specified in OAuthSettingsLocation. These values persist across connections.

The cmdlet refreshes the access token automatically when it expires.

Headless Machines

To configure the driver to use OAuth with a user account on a headless machine, you need to authenticate on another device that has an internet browser.

Choose one of two options:
- Option 1: Obtain the OAuthVerifier value as described in "Obtain and Exchange a Verifier Code" below.
- Option 2: Install the cmdlet on a machine with an internet browser and transfer the OAuth authentication values after you authenticate through the usual browser-based flow, as described in "Transfer OAuth Settings" below.
Then configure the cmdlet to automatically refresh the access token on the headless machine.

Option 1: Obtain and Exchange a Verifier Code

To obtain a verifier code, you must authenticate at the OAuth authorization URL.

Follow the steps below to authenticate from the machine with an internet browser and obtain the OAuthVerifier connection property.

Choose one of these options:
- If you are using the Embedded OAuth Application, call the GetOAuthAuthorizationURL stored procedure. Open the URL returned by the stored procedure in a browser.
- If you are using a custom OAuth application, set the following properties:
  - InitiateOAuth: Set to OFF.
  - OAuthClientId: Set to the client Id assigned when you registered your application.
  - OAuthClientSecret: Set to the client secret assigned when you registered your application.
  Then call the GetOAuthAuthorizationURL stored procedure with the appropriate CallbackURL. Open the URL returned by the stored procedure in a browser.
Log in and grant permissions to the cmdlet. You are then redirected to the redirect URI. There will be a parameter called code appended to the redirect URI. Note the value of this parameter. Later you will set this in the OAuthVerifier connection property.

Next, you need to exchange the OAuth verifier code for OAuth refresh and access tokens.

On the headless machine, set the following connection properties to obtain the OAuth authentication values:

InitiateOAuth: Set this to REFRESH.
OAuthVerifier: Set this to the noted verifier code (the value of the code parameter in the redirect URI).
OAuthClientId: (custom applications only) Set this to the client Id in your custom OAuth application settings.
OAuthClientSecret: (custom applications only) Set this to the client secret in the custom OAuth application settings.
OAuthSettingsLocation: Set this to persist the encrypted OAuth authentication values to the specified file.

Test the connection to generate the OAuth settings file, then re-set the following properties to connect:

InitiateOAuth: Set this to REFRESH.
OAuthClientId: (custom applications only) Set this to the client Id assigned when you registered your application.
OAuthClientSecret: (custom applications only) Set this to the client secret assigned when you registered your application.
OAuthSettingsLocation: Set this to the file containing the encrypted OAuth authentication values. Make sure this file gives read and write permissions to the cmdlet to enable the automatic refreshing of the access token.

Option 2: Transfer OAuth Settings

Prior to connecting on a headless machine, you need to install and create a connection with the driver on a device that supports an internet browser. Set the connection properties as described in "Desktop Applications" above.

After completing the instructions in "Desktop Applications", the resulting authentication values are encrypted and written to the path specified by OAuthSettingsLocation. The default filename is OAuthSettings.txt.

Test the connection to generate the OAuth settings file, then copy the OAuth settings file to your headless machine.

On the headless machine, set the following connection properties to connect to data:

InitiateOAuth: Set this to REFRESH.
OAuthClientId: (custom applications only) Set this to the client Id assigned when you registered your application.
OAuthClientSecret: (custom applications only) Set this to the client secret assigned when you registered your application.
OAuthSettingsLocation: Set this to the path to the OAuth settings file you copied from the machine with the browser. Make sure this file gives read and write permissions to the cmdlet to enable the automatic refreshing of the access token.

Retrieving Data

The Select-ZohoBooks cmdlet provides a native PowerShell interface for retrieving data:

$results = Select-ZohoBooks -Connection $conn -Table "INVOICES" -Columns @("InvoiceId, InvoiceNumber") -Where "CustomerName='NewTech Industries'"

The Invoke-ZohoBooks cmdlet provides an SQL interface. This cmdlet can be used to execute an SQL query via the Query parameter.

Piping Cmdlet Output

The cmdlets return row objects to the pipeline one row at a time. The following line exports results to a CSV file:

Select-ZohoBooks -Connection $conn -Table INVOICES -Where "CustomerName = 'NewTech Industries'" | Select -Property * -ExcludeProperty Connection,Table,Columns | Export-Csv -Path c:\myINVOICESData.csv -NoTypeInformation

You will notice that we piped the results from Select-ZohoBooks into a Select-Object cmdlet and excluded some properties before piping them into an Export-CSV cmdlet. We do this because the CData Cmdlets append Connection, Table, and Columns information onto each row object in the result set, and we do not necessarily want that information in our CSV file.

However, this makes it easy to pipe the output of one cmdlet to another. The following is an example of converting a result set to JSON:

 
PS C:\> $conn  = Connect-ZohoBooks -InitiateOAuth "GETANDREFRESH" -OrganizationId "YourOrganizationId"
PS C:\> $row = Select-ZohoBooks -Connection $conn -Table "INVOICES" -Columns (InvoiceId, InvoiceNumber) -Where "CustomerName = 'NewTech Industries'" | select -first 1
PS C:\> $row | ConvertTo-Json
{
  "Connection":  {

  },
  "Table":  "INVOICES",
  "Columns":  [

  ],
  "InvoiceId":  "MyInvoiceId",
  "InvoiceNumber":  "MyInvoiceNumber"
}

Deleting Data

The following line deletes any records that match the criteria:

Select-ZohoBooks -Connection $conn -Table INVOICES -Where "CustomerName = 'NewTech Industries'" | Remove-ZohoBooks

Modifying Data

The cmdlets make data transformation easy as well as data cleansing. The following example loads data from a CSV file into Zoho Books, checking first whether a record already exists and needs to be updated instead of inserted.

Import-Csv -Path C:\MyINVOICESUpdates.csv | %{
  $record = Select-ZohoBooks -Connection $conn -Table INVOICES -Where ("Id = `'"+$_.Id+"`'")
  if($record){
    Update-ZohoBooks -Connection $conn -Table INVOICES -Columns @("InvoiceId","InvoiceNumber") -Values @($_.InvoiceId, $_.InvoiceNumber) -Where "Id  = `'$_.Id`'"
  }else{
    Add-ZohoBooks -Connection $conn -Table INVOICES -Columns @("InvoiceId","InvoiceNumber") -Values @($_.InvoiceId, $_.InvoiceNumber)
  }
}

Cmdlets for Zoho Books