Access Live Avalara AvaTax 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 Avalara AvaTax data directly within Excel, facilitating data analysis, collaboration, calculations, and more.This article shows how to connect to Avalara AvaTax in your Connect AI instance and access and update live Avalara AvaTax data in Excel spreadsheets.

CData Connect AI provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Avalara AvaTax, allowing you to easily access live Avalara AvaTax 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 Avalara AvaTax, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Avalara AvaTax data.

Configure Avalara AvaTax Connectivity for Excel

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

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

2. Select "Avalara AvaTax" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Avalara AvaTax.

   The primary method for performing basic authentication is to provide your login credentials, as follows:

   • User: Set this to your username.
   • Password: Set this to your password.

   Optionally, if you are making use of a sandbox environment, set the following:

   • UseSandbox: Set this to true if you are authenticating with a sandbox account.

   Authenticating Using Account Number and License Key

   Alternatively, you can authenticate using your account number and license key. Connect to data using the following:

   • AccountId: Set this to your Account Id. The Account Id is listed in the upper right hand corner of the admin console.
   • LicenseKey: Set this to your Avalara Avatax license key. You can generate a license key by logging into Avalara Avatax as an account administrator and navigating to Settings -> Reset License Key.
   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Avalara AvaTax Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions
   

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Avalara AvaTax data from Excel.

Access Live Avalara AvaTax Data in Excel

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Excel to access live Avalara AvaTax 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. AvalaraAvatax1), Table (e.g. Transactions), 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
   

Update Avalara AvaTax Data from Excel

In addition to viewing Avalara AvaTax data in Excel, CData Connect AI also lets you update and delete Avalara AvaTax data. Begin by importing data (as described above).

1. Update any cell or cells with changes you want to push to Avalara AvaTax (your changes will be in red)
2. In the CData Connect AI Add-In panel, select Update
3. Optionally highlight the cell(s) you wish to update and select an update option ("Update All" or "Update Selected") 👁 Executing the update (Salesforce is shown).
   
4. Click Execute to push the updates to Avalara AvaTax, and a notification will appear when the update is complete

Live Access to Avalara AvaTax Data from Cloud Applications

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

👁 Imported data (Salesforce is shown)


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