The RSSBus ADO.NET Providers offer an easy way to integrate with different data sources. In this article, we include a fully functional application that can be used to synchronize contacts between Google and QuickBooks. Like our QuickBooks ADO.NET Provider, the included application supports both the desktop versions of QuickBooks and QuickBooks Online Edition.
Getting the Contacts
Step 1: Google accounts include a number of contacts. To obtain a list of a user's Google Contacts, issue a query to the Contacts table. For example: SELECT * FROM Contacts.
Step 2: QuickBooks stores contact information in multiple tables. Depending on your use case, you may want to synchronize your Google Contacts with QuickBooks Customers, Employees, Vendors, or a combination of the three. To get data from a specific table, issue a SELECT query to that table. For example: SELECT * FROM Customers
Step 3: Retrieving all results from QuickBooks may take some time, depending on the size of your company file. To narrow your results, you may want to use a filter by including a WHERE clause in your query. For example:
SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE (Name LIKE '%James%')
AND IncludeJobs = 'FALSE'
Synchronizing the Contacts
Synchronizing the contacts is a simple process. Once the contacts from Google and the customers from QuickBooks are available, they can be compared and synchronized based on user preference. The sample application does this based on user input, but it is easy to create one that does the synchronization automatically. The INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements available in both data providers makes it easy to create, update, or delete contacts in either data source as needed.
Pre-Built Demo Application
The executable for the demo application can be downloaded here. Note that this demo is built using BETA builds of the ADO.NET Provider for Google V2 and ADO.NET Provider for QuickBooks V3, and will expire in 2013.
Source Code
You can download the full source of the demo application here. You will need the Google ADO.NET Data Provider V2 and the QuickBooks ADO.NET Data Provider V3, which can be obtained here.
