Access Live Amazon S3 Data in Excel (Desktop) via Connect AI

Microsoft Excel is a widely used spreadsheet software application, primarily used for tasks related to data management, analysis, and visualization. When combined with CData Connect AI, you gain immediate access to Amazon S3 data directly within Excel, facilitating data analysis, collaboration, calculations, and more.This article shows how to connect to Amazon S3 in your Connect AI instance and access live Amazon S3 data in Excel spreadsheets.

CData Connect AI provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Amazon S3, allowing you to easily access live Amazon S3 data in Excel for the web. Simply use the Connect AI Add-In to query live data (or write your own). Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported query operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Amazon S3, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Amazon S3 data.

Configure Amazon S3 Connectivity for Excel

Connectivity to Amazon S3 from Excel is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Amazon S3 data from Excel, we start by creating and configuring a Amazon S3 connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
👁 Adding a Connection

2. Select "Amazon S3" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Amazon S3.

   To authorize Amazon S3 requests, provide the credentials for an administrator account or for an IAM user with custom permissions. Set AccessKey to the access key Id. Set SecretKey to the secret access key.

   Note: You can connect as the AWS account administrator, but it is recommended to use IAM user credentials to access AWS services.

   For information on obtaining the credentials and other authentication methods, refer to the Getting Started section of the Help documentation.

   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Amazon S3 Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions
   

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Amazon S3 data from Excel.

Access Live Amazon S3 Data in Excel

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Excel to access live Amazon S3 data.

1. Open Excel, create a new sheet (or open an existing one).
2. Click Insert and click Get Add-ins. (if you have already installed the Add-In, jump to step 4).
3. Search for CData Connect AI Add-In and install the Add-in. 👁 Install the Add-In
   
4. Click Data and open the CData Connect AI Add-In.
5. In the Add-In panel, click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect AI instance 👁 Authorizing the Add-In
   
6. In the CData Connect AI panel in Excel, click Import 👁 CData Connect AI panel in Excel
   
7. Choose a Connection (e.g. AmazonS31), Table (e.g. ObjectsACL), and Columns to import 👁 CData Connect AI panel in Excel
   
8. Optionally add Filters, Sorting, and a Limit 👁 Choosing a Connection, Table, and Columns
   
9. Click Execute to import the data 👁 Executing the Query
   

Live Access to Amazon S3 Data from Cloud Applications

Now, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Amazon S3 data from your Excel workbook. You can add more data to your workbook for calculations, aggregations, collaboration, and more.

Try CData Connect AI and get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.