Excel Spreadsheet Automation on EnterpriseDB Data with the QUERY Formula

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

• Connection: Either the connection name, such as EnterpriseDBConnection1, or a connection string. The connection string consists of the required properties for connecting to EnterpriseDB data, separated by semicolons.

  The following connection properties are required in order to connect to data.

  • Server: The host name or IP of the server hosting the EnterpriseDB database.
  • Port: The port of the server hosting the EnterpriseDB database.

  You can also optionally set the following:

  • Database: The default database to connect to when connecting to the EnterpriseDB Server. If this is not set, the user's default database will be used.

  Connect Using Standard Authentication

  To authenticate using standard authentication, set the following:

  • User: The user which will be used to authenticate with the EnterpriseDB server.
  • Password: The password which will be used to authenticate with the EnterpriseDB server.

  Connect Using SSL Authentication

  You can leverage SSL authentication to connect to EnterpriseDB data via a secure session. Configure the following connection properties to connect to data:

  • SSLClientCert: Set this to the name of the certificate store for the client certificate. Used in the case of 2-way SSL, where truststore and keystore are kept on both the client and server machines.
  • SSLClientCertPassword: If a client certificate store is password-protected, set this value to the store's password.
  • SSLClientCertSubject: The subject of the TLS/SSL client certificate. Used to locate the certificate in the store.
  • SSLClientCertType: The certificate type of the client store.
  • SSLServerCert: The certificate to be accepted from the server.
• 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 EnterpriseDB data, such as ShipCountry.
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 ShipCountry = '"&B6&"'","User="&B1&";Password="&B2&";Database="&B3&";Server="&B4&";Port="&B5&";Provider=EnterpriseDB",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.)