How to set-up a hosted Glide Integration with CCH
** If you understand how the scripts work then please feel free to run them however works best with your infrastructure. The guide here is aimed at intermediate users who wish to get up and running quickly. Please feel free to make adjustments to the scripts as required. **
In our tutorials the PHP scripts are installed on the same machine as your SQL Server. However this does not need to be the case, the PHP scripts simply need to be able to connect to the SQL Server. PHP in this context is used purely as a scripting language, there is no requirements for any kind of server to be run, nor to listen on any ports. These scripts connect to your SQL Server and then connect to the Glide API via HTTP requests. Source code to all scripts is freely available.
Prior Setup
Firstly please follow our guide on setting up the glideInt database on your SQL Server instance and creating the special glide user. This can be found in the package that we will have sent you and is called 'Setup_CreateGlideIntDatabase.sql'. To setup the Glide user please follow this guide: https://glide.helpscoutdocs.com/article/133-giving-the-connector-access-to-sql-server
Once you have completed those steps, proceed with the tutorial below.
Connector Scripts Setup
a) Download the PHP interpreter
Download the latest version of PHP (8.3 as of writing) from https://windows.php.net/download
** The version you need to download is "x64 Non Thread Safe" and "Zip" **
As of writing this is a 30mb file and is the first of the "Zip" downloads on the page
Using Windows Explorer find the downloaded file and right-click on it, select 'Extract-All'. It will most likely be in your 'Downloads' folder which is accessible from the left-pane of Windows Explorer.
Choose a suitable location to extract PHP. You should not attempt to install in protected areas such as 'Program Files' or even 'C:'. The users 'My Documents' folder will suffice.
Remember the location of the PHP folder, this is where you will extract the Glide integration script files.
b) Download the 'Microsoft Drivers for PHP for SQL Server'
To connect to SQL Server efficiently Microsoft provides a set of files that PHP will use to make the connection.
Download this from:
(look for the 'Download' section midway down the page)
This will download a file SQLSRV512.exe which will most likely be placed in your Downloads folder.
Navigate in Windows Explorer to this file and double click on it. You will be asked to choose an installation location.
Getting this step correct is critical. Navigate to the folder where you extracted PHP. Inside that folder you will see several other folders, one of which is called 'ext'. Click on 'ext' so that the destination to extract the files has the 'ext' folder name after the location of your PHP folder.
e.g. "My Documents\PHP\ext"
Proceed with the installation, this will extract a series of files into the 'ext' folder inside your PHP folder.
To check that the files have been extracted correctly use Windows Explorer to navigate to your PHP folder, then to the ext folder inside.
You should see many files, some of which have names such as SQLSRV_Readme, SQLSRV_ThirdPartyNotices, php_sqlsrv_83_nts_x64.dll
If you do not see these files, and simply see files such as php_sqlite3.dll then the SQL Server driver files have not been extracted to the correct location. Retry the installation and check that you have selected the 'ext' folder.
c) Rename the PHP configuration file
Use Windows Explorer to navigate to the folder where you extracted PHP. You will see a series of files and folders.
Look for a file called 'php.ini-development'. Right-click on this file and select 'rename'. Rename the file to 'php.ini'.
Windows will ask for confirmation, saying that renaming an extention could cause problems. Proceed as this is desired in this case.
(note: you could also choose to rename the example production version of php.ini called php.ini-production. Either is fine, we recommend using the development configuration as it is configured for better error reporting which may be useful.)
Once you have a file called php.ini in your PHP folder, proceed to the next step.
d) Download Certificate Authority file
Visit this page in a web browser: https://curl.se/docs/caextract.html
Download the cacert.pem file to your computer.
Navigate to the downloaded file and move it into the directory where you placed PHP.
e) Edit the php configuration file
Double click on the php.ini file - it will most likely open in Notepad
On the menu-bar click 'View' and then ensure 'Status Bar' is selected, this allows you to see line numbers easily.
Navigate to line 768 - remove the ';' character at the beginning of the line, so you just see extension_dir=ext
Navigate to line 921 - remove the ';' character at the beginning of the line, so you just see extension=curl
Navigate to line 946 - you should be at the end of a list of extensions. Create a new line and enter this:
extension=php_pdo_sqlsrv_83_nts_x64
(Note: the 83 there equates to PHP 8.3, if you installed PHP 8.1, then you would put 81 instead of 83)
Navigate to line 1917 - remove the ';' character at the beginning of the line, you will see
curl.cainfo =
Now you need to add the full path to the file you downloaded in the previous step. For example (your path will be different)
curl.cainfo = "C:\PHP\cacert.pem" <- your location will be different
Now save the file.
The line you added will load the Microsoft driver that we downloaded. It is possible that the exact filename has changed since this document was written. To be sure look for a file with that name in the 'ext' folder. We chose '83' as it matches with our version of PHP (8.3). If you have a different version of PHP you may need to name a different file to load.
f) Extract the Glide Integration scripts
You will have been sent the latest version of our CCH->Glide Connector tool.
Navigate in Windows Explorer to the file and right-click on the filename and choose 'Extract-All'. Navigate to your PHP folder. You should select the PHP folder itself.
Extract the files. They should be extracted into a folder called GLIDE, which will be inside your PHP folder.
So alongside your 'ext' folder and other folders and files you will now see a new folder called 'GLIDE'.
g) Enter your credentials
Navigate to the GLIDE folder from the previous step. You will see a file called 'config_example.php', create a copy of this file and call it 'config.php'. Double click on config.php and you will probably be asked with which application to load the file. Choose 'More apps' and select Notepad.
The file should now be open in Notepad.
You will see something like the following, inside the single quotes you should enter your credentials.
Here is an example.
$GLOBALS['glide_api_key'] = 'f78d7s98f76g9df97d8s9d887f'; $GLOBALS['sql_user'] = 'glide'; $GLOBALS['sql_password'] = 'p2kj4jd8f!!hd8f'; $GLOBALS['sql_servername'] = 'SQLSERVER'; $GLOBALS['sql_port'] = '1433'; $GLOBALS['sql_glide_dbase'] = 'CCHGlide'; $GLOBALS['sql_dbase'] = 'Central';
The 'glide_api_key' item is your Glide API key which can be found in the system configuration screen on Glide.
The 'sql_user' and 'sql_password' are the username and password for the new user you created on SQL Server
The 'sql_servername' is the name of the SQL Server instance you will be connecting to. If this is on another machine then you might have a machine name followed by a backslash and then the instance name.
Once you have entered your credentials save the file. If you have problems getting the integration to function then checking the data supplied here should be your first port of call.
h) Run a connection test
Navigate to the GLIDE folder which will be inside the PHP folder.
*** Note: Your web browser may have marked these files as potentially dangerous as they were downloaded from the Internet. Please right click and select properties - towards the bottom of the dialog you may see that there is an option to unlock the file. You should do this for all the files in the folder ***
Execute the TEST_CONNECTION_GLIDE.bat file. This is traditionally executed by double clicking, however you may need to use a different method such as the Windows command line. This will test your connection to the Glide API.
If the output returns a positive result then you have correctly setup the connection to the Glide API.
Execute the TEST_CONNECTION_SQLSVR.bat file. If this outputs a positive result then you have successfully setup the connection to SQL Server.
Note: At this point we strongly suggest you contact Glide support and confirm that the above setup has been completed successfully, certain customisations will then be explained to you, that can bring in additional data to Glide and are not included in the default base connector. If you wish to add these additional data points then this would be the time to do it.
i) Import clients into Glide
Execute the BULK_IMPORT.bat file, this will import all of the clients in your accounting program into Glide.
This process may take 30 minutes or more depending on the number of clients that you have.
Once the process has completed, ensure that the clients have been imported correctly.
j) Setup a Scheduled Task for 15 minute intervals
Setup a Scheduled Task in Windows to run the UPDATE.bat file every 15 minutes.
This will update your Glide system with the latest client changes in your accounting program. It is import that the interval is at least 15 minutes, attempting to run the script more frequently may result in your API access being disabled due to high usage.
Please contact the Glide support team should you encounter any problems or wish to discuss customisations to the integration script.