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

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

Configure Azure Table Connectivity for Excel

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

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

2. Select "Azure Table" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Azure Table.

   Specify your AccessKey and your Account to connect. Set the Account property to the Storage Account Name and set AccessKey to one of the Access Keys. Either the Primary or Secondary Access Keys can be used. To obtain these values, navigate to the Storage Accounts blade in the Azure portal. You can obtain the access key by selecting your account and clicking Access Keys in the Settings section.

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

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Azure Table data from Excel.

Access Live Azure Table Data in Excel

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Excel to access live Azure Table 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. AzureTables1), Table (e.g. NorthwindProducts), 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 Azure Table Data from Excel

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

1. Update any cell or cells with changes you want to push to Azure Table (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 Azure Table, and a notification will appear when the update is complete

Live Access to Azure Table Data from Cloud Applications

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

👁 Imported data (Salesforce is shown)


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