Freshbooks

The FreshBooks connector lets you connect to a FreshBooks instance and access FreshBooks data as a traditional database.

Supported versions

This connector models the FreshBooks Alpha API as database objects that can be queried with SQL.

Before you begin

Before using the Freshbooks connector, do the following tasks:

• In your Google Cloud project:
  • Ensure that network connectivity is set up. For information about network patterns, see Network connectivity.
  • Enable the following services:
    • secretmanager.googleapis.com (Secret Manager API)
    • connectors.googleapis.com (Connectors API)

    To understand how to enable services, see Enabling services.

  If these services or permissions have not been enabled for your project previously, you are prompted to enable them when configuring the connector.

For information about how to create an application and generate client id and client secret for authentication, see Get Started with FreshBooks API.

Configure the connector

Configuring the connector requires you to create a connection to your data source (backend system). A connection is specific to a data source. It means that if you have many data sources, you must create a separate connection for each data source. To create a connection, do the following steps:

1. In the Cloud console, go to the Integration Connectors > Connections page and then select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Go to the Connections page

2. Click + Create new to open the Create Connection page.
3. In the Location section, choose the location for the connection.
   1. Region: Select a location from the drop-down list.

      Supported regions for connectors include:

      For the list of all the supported regions, see Locations.

   2. Click Next.
4. In the Connection Details section, complete the following:
   1. Connector: Select Freshbooks from the drop down list of available Connectors.
   2. Connector version: Select the Connector version from the drop down list of available versions.
   3. In the Connection Name field, enter a name for the Connection instance.

      Connection names must meet the following criteria:

      • Connection names can use letters, numbers, or hyphens.
      • Letters must be lower-case.
      • Connection names must begin with a letter and end with a letter or number.
      • Connection names cannot exceed 49 characters.
   4. Optionally, enter a Description for the connection instance.
   5. Optionally, enable Cloud logging, and then select a log level. By default, the log level is set to Error.
   6. Service Account: Select a service account that has the required roles.
   7. Optionally, configure the Connection node settings:
      • Minimum number of nodes: Enter the minimum number of connection nodes.
      • Maximum number of nodes: Enter the maximum number of connection nodes.

      A node is a unit (or replica) of a connection that processes transactions. More nodes are required to process more transactions for a connection and conversely, fewer nodes are required to process fewer transactions. To understand how the nodes affect your connector pricing, see Pricing for connection nodes. If you don't enter any values, by default the minimum nodes are set to 2 (for better availability) and the maximum nodes are set to 50.

   Note: You can customize the connection node values only if you are a Pay-as-you-go customer.
   8. Account Id: The Account Id to connect to. If a value is not specified, the first one returned will be used.
   9. Optionally, click + Add label to add a label to the Connection in the form of a key/value pair.
   10. Click Next.
5. In the Authentication section, enter the authentication details.
   1. Select an Authentication type and enter the relevant details.

      The following authentication types are supported by the Freshbooks connection:

      • OAuth 2.0 Auth Code Grant

   To understand how to configure these authentication types, see Configure authentication.

   2. Click Next.
6. Review: Review your connection and authentication details.
7. Click Create.

Configure authentication

Enter the details based on the authentication you want to use.

• OAuth 2.0 Auth Code Grant
  • Scopes: A comma-separated list of desired scopes.
  • Client ID: The client ID used for requesting access tokens.
  • Client secret: The client secret used for requesting access tokens.

To authorize the FreshBooks connection, do the following:

1. From the Connections page, click on the FreshBooks connection.
2. In the Authentication section, click Authorize Connection.
3. Navigate to the Redirect URI section and then copy it.
4. In the FreshBooks application, click Redirect URIs.
5. Paste the redirect URI that you copied from the FreshBooks connection and then click Save Settings.
6. Return to the FreshBooks connection, click Authorize from the authentication section.

   If the authorization is successful, the connection status will be set to Active in the Connections page.

Entities, operations, and actions

All the Integration Connectors provide a layer of abstraction for the objects of the connected application. You can access an application's objects only through this abstraction. The abstraction is exposed to you as entities, operations, and actions.

Note: You can view the entities, operations, and actions of a connector in the Connectors task.

• Entity: An entity can be thought of as an object, or a collection of properties, in the connected application or service. The definition of an entity differs from a connector to a connector. For example, in a database connector, tables are the entities, in a file server connector, folders are the entities, and in a messaging system connector, queues are the entities.

  However, it is possible that a connector doesn't support or have any entities, in which case the Entities list will be empty.

• Operation: An operation is the activity that you can perform on an entity. You can perform any of the following operations on an entity:
  • List
  • Get
  • Create
  • Update
  • Delete

  Selecting an entity from the available list, generates a list of operations available for the entity. For a detailed description of the operations, see the Connectors task's entity operations. However, if a connector doesn't support any of the entity operations, such unsupported operations aren't listed in the Operations list.

• Action: An action is a first class function that is made available to the integration through the connector interface. An action lets you make changes to an entity or entities, and vary from connector to connector. Normally, an action will have some input parameters, and an output parameter. However, it is possible that a connector doesn't support any action, in which case the Actions list will be empty.

Note: All entities and actions will have a schema associated with them. For example, an action schema will have the parameter details such as; the parameter names, and its corresponding data type. The schema (metadata) for entities and actions is fetched by the connection at runtime from your backend. If there are any updates to the schema, such updates won't be automatically reflected in your existing connections; you must manually refresh the schema. To refresh the schema for a connection, open the Connection details page of the connection, and then click Refresh connection schema.

Entity operation examples

This section shows how to perform some of the entity operations in this connector.

Example - List all the projects

This example lists all the projects in the Projects entity.

1. In the Configure connector task dialog, click Entities.
2. Select Projects from the Entity list.
3. Select the List operation, and then click Done.
4. Optionally, in Task Input section of the Connectors task, you can filter your result set by specifying a filter clause.

Example - Get a record from an entity

This example gets a record whose ID is 2009015 from the Expense Categories entity.

1. In the Configure connector task dialog, click Entities.
2. Select Expense Categories from the Entity list.
3. Select the Get operation, and then click Done.
4. In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click EntityId and then enter 2009015 in the Default Value field.

   Here, 2009015 is a primary key value in the Expense Categories entity.

Example - Create an invoice

This example creates a invoice in the Invoices entity.

1. In the Configure connector task dialog, click Entities.
2. Select Invoices from the Entity list.
3. Select the Create operation, and then click Done.
4. In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click connectorInputPayload and then enter a value similar to the following in the Default Value field:

   {"CustomerId": 68039.0,
   "FirstName": "John",
   "CreateDate": "2023-09-13"
   }

   If the integration is successful, your connector task's connectorOutputPayload field will have a value similar to the following:

   {
   "Id": "49594.0"
   }

Example - Update an invoice

This example updates the invoice whose ID is 36741.0 in the Invoices entity.

1. In the Configure connector task dialog, click Entities.
2. Select Invoices from the Entity list.
3. Select the Update operation, and then click Done.
4. In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click connectorInputPayload and then enter a value similar to the following in the Default Value field:

   {
   "FirstName": "James"
   }

5. Click entityId, and then enter 36741.0 in the Default Value field.

   Alternately, instead of specifying the entityId, you can also set the filterClause to 36741.0.

   If the integration is successful, your connector task's connectorOutputPayload field will have a value similar to the following:

   {
   "Id": "36741.0"
   }

Example - Delete a record

This example deletes the record whose ID is 78 in the Payments entity.

1. In the Configure connector task dialog, click Entities.
2. Select Payments from the Entity list.
3. Select the Delete operation, and then click Done.
4. In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click entityId and then enter 78 in the Default Value field.

Use terraform to create connections

You can use the Terraform resource to create a new connection.

To learn how to apply or remove a Terraform configuration, see Basic Terraform commands.

To view a sample terraform template for connection creation, see sample template.

When creating this connection by using Terraform, you must set the following variables in your Terraform configuration file:

Parameter name	Data type	Required	Description
account_id	STRING	True	The Account Id to connect to. If a value is not specified, the first one returned will be used.

Use the Freshbooks connection in an integration

After you create the connection, it becomes available in both Apigee Integration and Application Integration. You can use the connection in an integration through the Connectors task.

• To understand how to create and use the Connectors task in Apigee Integration, see Connectors task.
• To understand how to create and use the Connectors task in Application Integration, see Connectors task.

Get help from the Google Cloud community

You can post your questions and discuss this connector in the Google Cloud community at Cloud Forums.

What's next

• Understand how to suspend and resume a connection.
• Understand how to monitor connector usage.
• Understand how to view connector logs.