Excel Spreadsheet Automation on Clio Data with the QUERY Formula

The CData Excel Add-In for Clio provides formulas that can query Clio data. The following three steps show how you can automate the following task: Search Clio 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 Clio 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 Clio data, separated by semicolons.

  Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Clio Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Clio.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Clio (see below).

  Clio API Profile Settings

  Clio uses OAuth-based authentication.

  First, register an OAuth application with Clio. You can do so by logging to your Developer Account and clicking the Add button. Enter details and select the scope of your application here - these details will be shown to Clio users when they're asked to authorize your application. Your Oauth application will be assigned a client id (key) and a client secret (secret). Additionally set the Region in ProfileSettings connection property.

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

  • AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
  • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage the process to obtain the OAuthAccessToken.
  • OAuthClientId: Set this to the client_id that is specified in you app settings.
  • OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client_secret that is specified in you app settings.
  • CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI that is specified in your app settings.
  • Region: Set this in ProfileSettings to your Clio geographic region. Defaults to app.clio.com.
• 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 Clio data, such as State.
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 Bills WHERE State = '"&B8&"'","Profile="&B1&";ProfileSettings="&B2&";Authscheme="&B3&";OAuthClientId="&B4&";OAuthClientSecret="&B5&";CallbackUrl="&B6&";Provider=API",B9)

👁 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.)