Excel Spreadsheet Automation on DB2 Data with the QUERY Formula

The CData Excel Add-In for DB2 provides formulas that can edit, save, and delete DB2 data. The following three steps show how you can automate the following task: Search DB2 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 DB2 data records you want to retrieve or the modifications to be made, written in standard SQL.

• Connection: Either the connection name, such as DB2Connection1, or a connection string. The connection string consists of the required properties for connecting to DB2 data, separated by semicolons.

  Set the following properties to connect to DB2:

  • Server: Set this to the name of the server running DB2.
  • Port: Set this to the port the DB2 server is listening on.
  • Database: Set this to the name of the DB2 database.
  • User: Set this to the username of a user allowed to access the database.
  • Password: Set this to the password of a user allowed to access the database.

  You will also need to install the corresponding DB2 driver:

  • Windows: Install the IBM Data Server Provider for .NET.

    On Windows, installing the IBM Data Server Provider is sufficient, as the installation registers it in the machine.config.

  • Java: Install the IBM Data Server Driver for JDBC.

    In the Java version, place the IBM Data Server Driver JAR in the www\WEB-INF\lib\ folder for this application.

• 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 DB2 data, such as ShipCity.
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 Orders WHERE ShipCity = '"&B6&"'","Server="&B1&";Port="&B2&";User="&B3&";Password="&B4&";Database="&B5&";Provider=DB2",B7)

👁 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.)