Connecting QODBC Driver to QuickBooks for the First Time  (Video)

    Go to: How to set up the QODBC Optimizer and Where are the Optimizer options for the next step.

    You can also see: How to set up QODBC for Auto-login into QuickBooks / How to set up QODBC Driver to auto-connect to QuickBooks. (Video) for more details.

    See also: How to use QODBC Support Wizard for testing. 

    See also: VB Demo is missing 

QODBC Setup Options

QODBC General Setup

     The first step in configuring the driver is to click on the QODBC Setup Screen, and the following general setup screen will become available.

Using the company file that's now open in QuickBooks allows QODBC to use the company file that you have available and will enable you to switch between files withoucreatingte separate DSNs for each company file.

Locate a company file: this is where your QuickBooks data file resides. For example: “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Intuit\QuickBooks\Sample Company Files\QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 9.0\ProMyapp.qbw”. The Browse button will let you choose your QuickBooks company file from its folder. To use the QODBC auto-login unattended mode, specify the full path of the QuickBooks company file you wish to connect to.

Data Source Name: This is a display name for your QuickBooks data (QuickBooks Data, QBPRO, My QB Data, etc.)

Mode, when opening, includes multiple ways of opening a QuickBooks file, and this setting allows you to determine how QODBC should open each company file.

     Same as the company file. If you select "Follow Company File," we will use whatever mode is currently set in the company file.

     Multi-user mode Selecting "Multiuser Mode" will set the file to Multi-user status, where multiple users can update the file simultaneously.

     Single-user mode If you require exclusive write access to the file (for record deletes), select "Single User Mode."

Test Connection to QuickBooks will determine if you have a proper installation and settings with QuickBooks and a company file open. 

QODBC Messages Setup

     Messages allow you to review message logs from QODBC regarding errors and issues communicating with QuickBooks, clear these messages, and review messages produced by the QuickBooks qbXML SDK interface.

Detail Tracing (Slow) creates a trace log of what QODBC is doing in the background with the application and is used for debugging purposes. Ensure the record is turned off when not needed, as these logs can use up large amounts of disk space.

Display Optimizer Status Panel will display the progress of optimization of the data; this is especially helpful on large data files being reloaded in their entirety.

When selected, Display Driver Status Panel shows precisely what QODBC is doing when accessing the QuickBooks data and provides a good assessment of speed using optimized and non-optimized data.

Verbose Optimizer Status Panel causes the Optimizer panel to come up whenever any optimizer happens. The standard checkbox only pops up the optimizer when doing the full update or reloading. 

QODBC Optimizer Setup

      Recommended settings for using QODBC are shown here. Read below for a summary explanation of all the options available to you. You can see: How to set up QODBC Optimizer and where are the Optimizer options for more details about QODBC Optimizer.

The optimizer brings some data to a local cache to increase query retrieval performance. Check to activate the Optimizer.

Optimizer Database Folder:  specifies where the local data store will be saved on disk. The default location %UserProfile%\QODBC Driver for QuickBooks\Optimizer is under your Windows login account name under your Documents and Settings folder. The data will be stored in a file in this folder with a name similar to the company file name with a .opt extension. If you keep that data somewhere other than the default, click the browse button and select the destination folder. With very large company files, we suggest running synchronization after hours.

Keep my optimized data up to date as of when you choose the optimizer to synchronize itself with your Company data. Depending on how static your data need is and the size of the file, you can opt for various time frames of synchronization. The farther down the list you go, the less synchronization will occur, and your queries will run much faster but will be using less current data than the company files.

The start of every query is the default setting using the most current data. Use this default setting if your question requires the latest up-to-the-minute data and speed is not the primary focus. Please remember that the QODBC Optimizer is local to your computer only, so when other users change things in QuickBooks, how does QODBC know? The optimizer will default update new and revised entries in a table from QuickBooks and then execute the query against the locally optimized table. This is faster than reading everything out of QuickBooks every time, especially the more data you have.

The start of every new connection (with "Load Updated Data" first) is used if you don't need to update the optimized data while you are, for example, running queries or importing or exporting data. The optimized information is updated upon a new connection and left updated until the following new link occurs again.

The start of every new connection (with "Reload All Data" first) is used if you need to rebuild optimized data from scratch before running important queries (like Sales Commission) or importing or exporting data. The optimized data is rebuilt upon a new connection and left un-updated until the next new connection occurs again.

The end of yesterday is used for a better balance between speed and data updating and would be the option that works best for most users. It only has to synchronize each table once daily, and the data will be current at the end of the previous day.

The end-of-last-month option is a great speed boost for running last month's or last year's queries. It does not need to synchronize again to get the data.

The last time I pressed one of the load data button options allowing you to control the synchronized timing. Synchronizing only occurs when you manually run it by pressing the Load Updated Data in the QODBC setup screen.

For balances and stock quantities: the option Nulls - will return NULLs for all fields that cannot be kept in sync, Dirty Reads - means return the most current value that was loaded into the optimizer cache, and Real-Time uses the slower method to get the data directly out of QuickBooks making sure you get the most current value for the requested fields. (Real Time is the previous method used).

Optimizing data after an Insert or Update causes QODBC to do Load Updated Data after an insert or update is executed on a table. Useful for programmers who want to test that their data has successfully been written to QuickBooks.

The multi-Table Sync option is unchecked by default for all non-USA enterprise users. If checked, the QODBC optimizer will use other tables to re-sync tables. However, this will slow down performance. When off, all Multi-Table Sync fields become Real-Time fields. Note: This feature is basically ignored and set to unchecked if the version is QBOE or SDK is less than v3 (used by QuickBooks 2004 USA and all QuickBooks versions outside the USA). Prior to SDK v3, the other multi-sync tables did not exist, so using real data for those fields is safer.

Load Updated Data: This button is used to Synchronize your optimized data with your company file. This will only load the data that has changed since the last automatic or manual synchronization.

Reload All Data: This button is used to rebuild the optimized data from scratch completely. It is useful when starting a new company if you do not want to synchronize the tables as you first encounter them and ensure that your data is 100% current.  

Removing/deleting optimizer file.

To delete the optimizer file. Please close/disconnect all the applications connected to QODBC.

Start "QODBC Setup Screen" & Switch to the Optimizer tab

Click "Reset Optimizer File(s)"

Click "Yes" to delete all the Optimizer files.

Please note: All the Optimizer files under the Optimizer Database folder will be removed if you wish to delete a single company file's optimizer.

The optimizer file can be found at "%appdata%\QODBC Driver for QuickBooks\Optimizer."

For Example: C:\Users\Raj\AppData\Roaming\QODBC Driver for QuickBooks\Optimizer

QODBC Advanced Setup

     The selected defaults in the Advanced settings should apply to most users and normally don't need to be changed.

Reconnect Delay: This is the time to wait for a disconnect when using the remote connector. This allows QuickBooks to fully unload it if it is being loaded in the background on the Host Remote Connector before you connect again.

Maximum Field Name Length: is set to the QuickBooks limitation, but certain applications like Delphi cannot handle this limit and must be set accordingly.

Use Case Sensitive RefNumber Searches, when checked, means a RefNumber of 'ABC' and 'ABC' will be different but means QuickBooks can use an index internally for a search instead of a complete table scan. (Note: this feature applies to versions of QuickBooks 2005 and higher)

Include Raw Files, if checked, will display both filtered and raw data formats. QODBC formats data into SQL field types more easily used in programming languages for math and comparison operations. The Raw tables return the data as it is returned to QODBC without modification.

ODBC Compatibility "Default" is 2.1. ODBC compatibility is for specific applications that require ODBC 2.1 Compatibility to use QODBC. Anything that uses the Java ODBC library, like ColdFusion, requires this option turned on, or recordsets will be returned with no row sets or only 1-row sets.

If you use Microsoft Excel Power Query or Microsoft Power BI, change the ODBC Compatibility to 3.8. 

SQL Server Support/Simulate Transaction Support for SQL Server will turn transaction support on so that SQL Server will allow updates when using QODBC as a linked server. QODBC still does not support transactions but simulates the turning on and off of transactions.

The Advanced tab in QODBC Setup v6 Build 186 later has new defaults for Use Iterators and Iterator or Chunk Size fields. This allows you to turn off iterators. This may be needed on systems like MS-SQL Server and Web Servers that use multiple threads. Using Iterators is faster but is only available to USA QuickBooks 2006 and USA QuickBooks 2007 users. Iterator or Chunk Size determines the size of the row sets that are retrieved from QuickBooks. Set this value high if you are exporting records from QuickBooks. The maximum Iterator or Chunk size that can be set is 100000 (more elevated than that, and it resets itself back to the default of 500).

Use Iterators and Iterator or Chunk Size fields to allow you to turn off the iterator. This is needed on MS-SQL and Web Servers that use multiple threads.

Convert All Numerics to VARCHARS is helpful for loading tables in Access when Access chooses the wrong size numeric field sizes. Access will give an error "data too large for field DECIMAL." When you get this error, switching this option on will allow all the data to be loaded into Access as strings. The data can be converted as needed by your programs.

Turning on Remote Connector will resurrect a tab for the Ibiz connector, which allows QODBC to talk to QuickBooks anywhere and transfers data in an unencrypted fashion, so it is not recommended for the Internet but primarily for LAN applications. See http://www.qodbc.com/QODBCremote.htm for more information on this feature. (Please Note: this option is no longer supported and will be phased out of the QODBC Setup Screen in future versions)

Adding XML to the trace log is an advanced option to put more information in the trace log to help.

The support team diagnoses a problem. It should not be used unless directed by the support staff, as this will generate large amounts of data in the trace log.

Integrated Application Defaults are the defaults set in the integrated application's dialog within QuickBooks and are available in the US versions of QuickBooks 2005 – 2013.

Force Start QuickBooks is an advanced option before QODBC tries to establish a connection to QuickBooks. This feature helps those users who are facing issues starting QuickBooks in the background, and the SDK cannot find an instance of QuickBooks running.

Force Close QuickBooks is an advanced option to Close/Kill QuickBooks after QODBC disconnects the connection to QuickBooks. This feature helps those users who have issues closing QuickBooks in Background, and the SDK cannot close QuickBooks.

Integrated Application Defaults authorization popup settings. These settings are only available to USA QuickBooks 2005 and above users. Otherwise, they are grayed out as follows:

Text Field Handling has been added to QODBC v7.00.00.204 and later. Convert Fields > 255 to LONG VARCHAR and Limit length to 4096 characters (default): These fields help some development environments get data from extended areas that would not be able to otherwise. Connection string options include ConvertToLongVARCHAR=Yes|No, and MaxLONGVARCHAR=4096.

Activate/Deactivate Tab

This tab allows you to purchase a CDKey, activate a license with the CDKey, or deactivate a currently active license and move that license to a new machine.

Activate is the online option for entering the CDKey that was issued to you upon purchasing the product to fully start QODBC from the evaluation version to either the full Read Only, Read/Write, or Web Edition that has been purchased. Suppose you do not have internet access to activate the product. In that case, you can use the phone option to supply your reseller or distributor with the information to activate the product.

Deactivate is the online method of deactivating a currently registered version of QODBC to transfer the product to another machine. Suppose internet access is not available from the registered device. In that case, you can use the phone option to supply your reseller or distributor with the information to deactivate the product CDKey for you. This process will take 24 to 48 hours before your CDKey account is credited with the deactivated license, and you can reactivate the license on a different machine.

About Tab

 
About screen shows the QODBC version currently installed, whether it is an evaluation copy or fully registered. The first letter in the serial number denotes what license is installed, the 2nd & 3rd digits the QODBC version, and the fourth denotes what version of QuickBooks (US, CA, UK, AU) the license is compatible with. (The serial number may be required for upgrades, rebate offers, technical installation support, or the Help Desk system.)

Check Website for Updates will launch your internet browser to our website and see if you have the latest version of QODBC installed on your machine. You can view the Readme file for the list of all the latest features in the current version of QODBC and download the newest update should you be using an older version of the driver.

 Keywords: setup for online