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 FinancialEdgeNXT 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 FinancialEdgeNXTCmdlets

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

Import-Module FinancialEdgeNXTCmdlets;

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

$conn = Connect-FinancialEdgeNXT

Authenticating to Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT (OAuth)

Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT uses the OAuth authentication standard. In all flows, you must:

set AuthScheme to OAuth
set the SubscriptionKey to your Subscription Key
enable Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT on an authorization account to retrieve results

The rest of this document assumes that you have done so.

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.

For authentication, the only difference between the two methods is that you must set two additional connection properties when using custom OAuth applications.

After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

CallbackURL: (custom applications only) Set this to the Redirect URL in your custom OAuth application settings.
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.

When you connect the cmdlet opens the OAuth endpoint in your default browser. Log in and grant permissions to the application. The cmdlet then completes the OAuth process as follows:

Extracts the access token from the callback URL.
Obtains a new access token when the old one expires.
Saves OAuth values in OAuthSettingsLocation that persist across connections.

Web Applications

When connecting via a Web application, you need to create and register a custom OAuth application with Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT. You can then use the cmdlet to acquire and manage the OAuth token values. See Creating a Custom OAuth App for more information about custom applications.

Get an OAuth Access Token

Set the following connection properties to obtain the OAuthAccessToken:

OAuthClientId: Set this to the Client Id in your application settings.
OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the Client Secret in your application settings.

Then call stored procedures to complete the OAuth exchange:

Call the GetOAuthAuthorizationURL stored procedure. Set the AuthMode input to WEB and set the CallbackURL input to the Redirect URI you specified in your app settings. If necessary, set the Permissions parameter to request custom permissions. The stored procedure returns the URL to the OAuth endpoint.
Navigate to the URL that the stored procedure returned in Step 1. Log in to the custom OAuth application and authorize the web application. Once the application has been authenticated, the browser redirects you to the callback URL.
Call the GetOAuthAccessToken stored procedure. Set AuthMode to WEB and the Verifier input to the "code" parameter in the query string of the callback URL. If necessary, set the Permissions parameter to request custom permissions.

To connect to data, set the OAuthAccessToken connection property to the access token returned by the stored procedure. When the access token expires after ExpiresIn seconds, call GetOAuthAccessToken again to obtain a new access token.

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 click Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT OAuth endpoint to open the endpoint in your browser.
- If you are using a custom OAuth application, create the Authorization URL by setting 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 callback URL, which contains the verifier code.
Save the value of the verifier code. 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. Set the following properties:

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 verifier code.
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 location.

After the OAuth settings file is generated, you need to 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 location containing the encrypted OAuth authentication values. Make sure this location 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 create and install 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 location specified by OAuthSettingsLocation. The default filename is OAuthSettings.txt.

Once you have successfully tested the connection, 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 location of your OAuth settings file. Make sure this location gives read and write permissions to the cmdlet to enable the automatic refreshing of the access token.

Retrieving Data

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

$results = Select-FinancialEdgeNXT -Connection $conn -Table "Accounts" -Columns @("AccountId, AccountNumber") -Where "ModifiedBy='System'"

The Invoke-FinancialEdgeNXT 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-FinancialEdgeNXT -Connection $conn -Table Accounts -Where "ModifiedBy = 'System'" | Select -Property * -ExcludeProperty Connection,Table,Columns | Export-Csv -Path c:\myAccountsData.csv -NoTypeInformation

You will notice that we piped the results from Select-FinancialEdgeNXT 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-FinancialEdgeNXT
PS C:\> $row = Select-FinancialEdgeNXT -Connection $conn -Table "Accounts" -Columns (AccountId, AccountNumber) -Where "ModifiedBy = 'System'" | select -first 1
PS C:\> $row | ConvertTo-Json
{
  "Connection":  {

  },
  "Table":  "Accounts",
  "Columns":  [

  ],
  "AccountId":  "MyAccountId",
  "AccountNumber":  "MyAccountNumber"
}

Modifying Data

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

Import-Csv -Path C:\MyAccountsUpdates.csv | %{
  $record = Select-FinancialEdgeNXT -Connection $conn -Table Accounts -Where ("Id = `'"+$_.Id+"`'")
  if($record){
    Update-FinancialEdgeNXT -Connection $conn -Table Accounts -Columns @("AccountId","AccountNumber") -Values @($_.AccountId, $_.AccountNumber) -Where "Id  = `'$_.Id`'"
  }else{
    Add-FinancialEdgeNXT -Connection $conn -Table Accounts -Columns @("AccountId","AccountNumber") -Values @($_.AccountId, $_.AccountNumber)
  }
}

Cmdlets for Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT