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:
- In the Cloud console, go to the Integration Connectors > Connections page and then select or create a Google Cloud project.
- Click + Create new to open the Create Connection page.
- In the Location section, choose the location for the connection.
- Region: Select a location from the drop-down list.
Supported regions for connectors include:
For the list of all the supported regions, see Locations.
- Click Next.
- Region: Select a location from the drop-down list.
- In the Connection Details section, complete the following:
- Connector: Select Freshbooks from the drop down list of available Connectors.
- Connector version: Select the Connector version from the drop down list of available versions.
- 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.
- Optionally, enter a Description for the connection instance.
- Optionally, enable Cloud logging,
and then select a log level. By default, the log level is set to
Error
. - Service Account: Select a service account that has the required roles.
- 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.
- Account Id: The Account Id to connect to. If a value is not specified, the first one returned will be used.
- Optionally, click + Add label to add a label to the Connection in the form of a key/value pair.
- Click Next.
-
In the Authentication section, enter the authentication details.
- 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
- Click Next.
To understand how to configure these authentication types, see Configure authentication.
- Select an Authentication type and enter the relevant details.
- Review: Review your connection and authentication details.
- 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:
- From the Connections page, click on the FreshBooks connection.
- In the Authentication section, click Authorize Connection.
- Navigate to the Redirect URI section and then copy it.
- In the FreshBooks application, click Redirect URIs.
- Paste the redirect URI that you copied from the FreshBooks connection and then click Save Settings.
- 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.
- 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:
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.
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.
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickEntities
. - Select
Projects
from theEntity
list. - Select the
List
operation, and then click Done. - 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.
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickEntities
. - Select
Expense Categories
from theEntity
list. - Select the
Get
operation, and then click Done. - 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 theExpense Categories
entity.
Example - Create an invoice
This example creates a invoice in the Invoices
entity.
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickEntities
. - Select
Invoices
from theEntity
list. - Select the
Create
operation, and then click Done. - In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click
connectorInputPayload
and then enter a value similar to the following in theDefault 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.
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickEntities
. - Select
Invoices
from theEntity
list. - Select the
Update
operation, and then click Done. - In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click
connectorInputPayload
and then enter a value similar to the following in theDefault Value
field:{ "FirstName": "James" }
- 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.
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickEntities
. - Select
Payments
from theEntity
list. - Select the
Delete
operation, and then click Done. - 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.