We have a slight problem here at Method. We have rebranded a "developer" as someone who develops their own system. Afterall, Method is a platform that is all drag and drop, no programming. But the old school way of thinking is that only a programmer can be called a developer. This leaves those who actually know how to write code asking "Where do I fit into all this? What's my title?" So until we find a better name, "QuickBooks geeks" it is - and since I am certainly a geek, I have no problem using the title.
You should have seen me around the office this week showing off the little apps I was creating using the Method API. Slick apps I'm telling you. Like a VBA add in for Excel that instantly grabs a list of overdue QuickBooks invoices and plops them into Excel. Or a cool little web page app that with 20 lines of code fires an invoice into QuickBooks in real time. I think the staff here were wearing sympathetic smiley faces while trying to figure out why I was so excited.
But that's understandable. They aren't all programming geeks like me. Furthermore, they haven't tried to make apps that use the QuickBooks SDK, or the QuickBooks Web Connector. So they couldn't possibly understand why it is so cool that you can write a simple SQL statement from a web page, send it to a MethodAPI web service and viola! it updates QuickBooks. But if you've kept with me to the end of paragraph 3 of this blog post......I'm thinking you just might get it too.
Who is this MethodAPI for? Not your typical Method user. This is for programmers (those of us who write code..yuk!!) that want to integrate their apps with Method. So they could be those who want to write powerful import or export tools from a desktop app like Excel, or they could be web developers that want to integrate Method users' websites with Method and QuickBooks data. In fact, when we were at the QB Enterprise Solutions Conference two weeks ago, I pretty much had every other software company come up to me at some point saying "hey, Paul, could you guys make that syncing engine available to us so that we could make web service calls instead of using the web connector?".
So, two weeks later, here we are. We move fast. MethodAPI is here, and it delivers a WOW - providing, of course, that you are a QuickBooks geek like me.
MethodAPI Documentation:
http://www.methodintegration.com/documentation/MethodAPIv1_Documentation.pdf
MethodAPI Samples for VBA / Excel:
http://www.methodintegration.com/documentation/MethodAPISample_VBA.zip
MethodAPI Samples for ASP.NET:
http://www.methodintegration.com/documentation/MethodAPISample_ASP.zip
Reply to this blog post with any comments, questions or complaints on the use of the “geek” word, I'm all ears.
Couple images:
Here's a screen shot of the "Get Overdue Invoices" in Excel:
Here's a snippet of the VBA code:
Paul Jackson
Method Integration