Building an all-new data connector is challenging, especially when you are already overloaded with managing & maintaining your existing custom data pipelines. To fulfill your finance team’s ad-hoc Xero to Databricks connection request, you’ll have to invest a significant portion of your engineering bandwidth.
We know you are short on time & need a quick way out. This can be a walk in the park if you just need to download and upload a couple of CSV files. Or you could directly opt for an automated tool that fully handles complex transformations and frequent data integrations for you.
Either way, with this article’s stepwise guide to connecting Xero to Databricks effectively, you can set all your worries aside and quickly deliver time-sensitive campaign data to your data-hungry sales & finance teams in 7 nifty minutes.
How to connect Xero to Databricks?
Based on your use case and available resources, there are 2 approaches to replicate data from Xero to Databricks. Let’s jump right into them.
Exporting & Importing data as CSV Files
The most basic Xero to Databricks integration approach is via CSV files. You can export the accounting data out of Xero into an Excel Sheet or CSV file and then upload and query the individual CSV file in Databricks. To get started with Xero to Databricks data replication process, follow these steps:
Step 1: Exporting Xero Data as a CSV File
- Select Advanced from the Accounting menu and click on the ‘Export accounting data‘ option. Add a code to accounts in your chart of accounts if required. If you do not provide a code, importation into a different accounting software may fail.
- Choose the item or taxing authority you want to import into.
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- Select the respective Date range of the Data to export. Lastly, click Download and save the file in your system.
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Now, you have a CSV file of your Xero accounting data which you can directly upload and query in Databricks following the steps below.
Step 2: Uploading CSV files into Databricks
- Log in to your Databricks account. On your Databricks homepage, click on the “click to browse” option. A new dialog box will appear on your screen. Navigate to the location on your system where you have saved the CSV file and select it.
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- In the Create New Table window in Databricks, click on the Create New Table with UI. Interestingly, while uploading your CSV files from your system, Databricks first stores them in the DBFS(Databricks File Store). You can observe this in the file path of your CSV file i.e in the format “/FileStore/tables/<fileName>.<fileType>”.
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- Select the cluster where you want to create your table and save the data. Click on the Preview Table button once you are done.
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- Finally, you can name the table and select the database where you want to create the table. Click on the Infer Schema check box to let Databricks set the data types based on the data values. Click the Create Table button to complete your data replication from Xero to Databricks.
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Following the above steps, you can easily download and upload your data as CSV files from Xero to Databricks. This approach works best for the following scenarios:
- Little to No Transformation Required: Carrying out complex data preparation and standardization tasks is impossible using the above method. Hence, it is an excellent choice if your account records or purchase data is already in an analysis-ready form for your business analysts.
- One-Time Data Migration: At times, business teams only need this data quarterly, yearly, or once when looking to migrate all the data completely. For these rare occasions, the manual effort is justified.
- Less Data: Downloading and uploading only a few CSV files is fairly simple and can be done quickly.
Though, it becomes quite a tremendous task if your sales & finance teams need updated reports every few hours. Moreover, your business team will eventually request to integrate data from multiple sources for a complete 360 view of the business cash flow in near real-time. Manually downloading & transforming the CSV files won’t be an effective choice now.
You would need to develop custom connectors and manage the data pipeline always to ensure a no data loss transfer. It also includes you continuously monitoring for any updates on the connector and being on-call to fix pipeline issues anytime. With most of the raw data being unclean and in multiple formats, setting up transformations for all these sources is another challenge. These additional tasks will take up at least 40-50% of the engineering bandwidth you need for your primary goals.
So, is there a way out of this messy situation? Well, you can…
Automate the Data Replication process using a No-Code Tool
Going all the way to write custom scripts for every new data connector request is not the most efficient and economical solution. Frequent breakages, pipeline errors, and lack of data flow monitoring make scaling such a system a nightmare.
You can streamline the data integration process by opting for an automated tool. To name a few benefits, you can check out the following:
- It allows you to focus on core engineering objectives while your business teams can jump on to reporting without any delays or data dependency on you.
- Your sales & finance teams can effortlessly enrich, filter, aggregate, and segment raw Xero data with just a few clicks.
- The beginner-friendly UI saves the engineering team hours of productive time lost due to tedious data preparation tasks.
- Your business teams get to work with near-real-time data with no compromise on the accuracy & consistency of the analysis.
As a hands-on example, you can check out how Hevo Data, a cloud-based No-code ETL/ELT Tool, makes the Xero to Databricks data replication effortless in just 2 simple steps:
- Step 1: To get started with replicating data from Xero to Databricks, configure Xero as a source by providing your Xero credentials.
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- Step 2: Configure Databricks as your destination and provide your Databricks credentials.
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After following the above 2 simple steps, Hevo Data will quickly create the pipeline for replicating data from Xero to Databricks based on your inputs while configuring the source and the destination.
The pipeline will automatically replicate new and updated data from Xero to Databricks every 15mins (by default). However, you can also adjust the Xero to Databricks data replication frequency per your requirements.
Data Replication Frequency
| Default Pipeline Frequency | Minimum Pipeline Frequency | Maximum Pipeline Frequency | Custom Frequency Range (Hrs) |
| 15 Mins | 15 Mins | 24 Hrs | 1-24 |
Hevo Data’s fault-tolerant architecture ensures that the data is handled securely and consistently with zero data loss. It also enriches the data and transforms it into an analysis-ready form without having to write a single line of code.
Hevo Data’s reliable data pipeline platform enables you to set up zero-code and zero-maintenance data pipelines that just work. By employing Hevo Data to simplify your Xero to Databricks data integration needs, you can leverage its salient features:
- Reliability at Scale: With Hevo Data, you get a world-class fault-tolerant architecture that scales with zero data loss and low latency.
- Monitoring and Observability: Monitor pipeline health with intuitive dashboards that reveal every stat of pipeline and data flow. Bring real-time visibility into your ELT with Alerts and Activity Logs.
- Stay in Total Control: When automation isn’t enough, Hevo Data offers flexibility – data ingestion modes, ingestion, and load frequency, JSON parsing, destination workbench, custom schema management, and much more – for you to have total control.
- Auto-Schema Management: Correcting improper schema after the data is loaded into your warehouse is challenging. Hevo Data automatically maps the source schema with the destination warehouse so that you don’t face the pain of schema errors.
- 24×7 Customer Support: With Hevo Data, you get more than just a platform, you get a partner for your pipelines. Discover peace with round-the-clock “Live Chat” within the platform. What’s more, you get 24×7 support even during the 14-day full-feature free trial.
- Transparent Pricing: Say goodbye to complex and hidden pricing models. Hevo Data’s Transparent Pricing brings complete visibility to your ELT spend. Choose a plan based on your business needs. Stay in control with spend alerts and configurable credit limits for unforeseen spikes in the data flow.
Get started for Free with Hevo!
What will you achieve by migrating data from Xero to Databricks?
Here’s a little something for the data analyst on your team. We’ve mentioned a few core insights you could get by replicating data from Xero to Databricks. Does your use case make this list?
- How does CMRR (Churn Monthly Recurring Revenue) vary by Marketing campaign?
- How much of the Annual Revenue was from In-app purchases?
- Which campaigns have the most support costs involved?
- For which geographies are marketing expenses the most?
- How does your overall business cash flow look like?
- Which sales channel provides the highest purchase orders?
Bringing It All Together
Just by importing & exporting CSV files for those rare Xero data replication requests from your sales & finance teams, you can easily hit it right out of the ballpark. But what if these data updates need to happen every few hours?
Your business teams are always on the hunt to boost their ROI by monitoring the cash flow and optimizing spending, all in real-time. Don’t worry, you won’t need to bite the bullet and spend months developing & maintaining custom data pipelines. You can make all hassle go away in minutes by taking a ride with Hevo Data’s 150+ plug-and-play integrations.
Visit our Website to Explore Hevo
Saving countless hours of manual data cleaning & standardizing, Hevo Data’s pre-load data transformations get it done in minutes via a simple drag n drop interface or your custom python scripts. No need to go to your data warehouse for post-load transformations. You can simply run complex SQL transformations from the comfort of Hevo Data’s interface and get your data in the final analysis-ready form.
Want to take Hevo Data for a spin? Sign Up for a 14-day free trial and simplify your data integration process. Check out the pricing details to understand which plan fulfills all your business needs.
Share your experience of connecting Xero to Databricks! Let us know in the comments section below!
Sanchit Agarwal is a data analyst at heart with a passion for data, software architecture, and writing technical content. He has experience writing more than 200 articles on data integration and infrastructure. He finds joy in breaking down complex concepts in simple and easy language, especially related to data base migration techniques and challenges in data replication.