Excel Spreadsheet Automation on Browserless Data with the QUERY Formula

The CData Excel Add-In for Browserless provides formulas that can query Browserless data. The following three steps show how you can automate the following task: Search Browserless data for a user-specified value and then organize the results into an Excel spreadsheet.

The syntax of the CDATAQUERY formula is the following:

=CDATAQUERY(Query, [Connection], [Parameters], [ResultLocation]);

This formula requires three inputs:

• Query: The declaration of the Browserless data records you want to retrieve, written in standard SQL.

• Connection: Either the connection name, such as APIConnection1, or a connection string. The connection string consists of the required properties for connecting to Browserless data, separated by semicolons.

  Browserless uses HTTP API token authentication. Your Browserless API token is sent as the token query parameter on every request. You can generate or view your token in the Browserless dashboard at https://account.browserless.io/.

  Using ApiKey Authentication

  After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

  • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
  • APIKey: Set this to your Browserless API token.

  Example connection string:

  Profile=C:\profiles\Browserless.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings="ApiKey=your_api_token";
  

• ResultLocation: The cell that the output of results should start from.

Pass Spreadsheet Cells as Inputs to the Query

The procedure below results in a spreadsheet that organizes all the formula inputs in the first column.

1. Define cells for the formula inputs. In addition to the connection inputs, add another input to define a criterion for a filter to be used to search Browserless data, such as Url.
2. In another cell, write the formula, referencing the cell values from the user input cells defined above. Single quotes are used to enclose values such as addresses that may contain spaces.

=CDATAQUERY("SELECT * FROM Map WHERE Url = '"&B5&"'","Profile="&B1&";AuthScheme="&B2&";ProfileSettings="&B3&";Provider=API",B6)

👁 Formula inputs used in this example. (Google Apps is shown.)

3. Change the filter to change the data. 👁 The outputs of the formula. (Google Apps is shown.)