Excel Reporting in OBIEE with the Excel JDBC Driver

The CData JDBC Driver for Excel is a standard database driver that can integrate real-time access to Excel data into your Java-based reporting server. This article shows how to deploy the driver to Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) and create reports on Excel data that reflect any changes.

Deploy the JDBC Driver

Follow the steps below to add the JDBC driver to WebLogic's classpath.

For WebLogic 12.2.1, simply place the driver JAR and .lic file into DOMAIN_HOME\lib; for example, ORACLE_HOME\user_projects\domains\MY_DOMAIN\lib. These files will be added to the server classpath at startup.

You can also manually add the driver to the classpath: This is required for earlier versions. Prepend the following to PRE_CLASSPATH in setDomainEnv.cmd (Windows) or setDomainEnv.sh (Unix). This script is located in the bin subfolder of the folder for that domain. For example: ORACLE_HOME\user_projects\domains\MY_DOMAIN\bin.

set PRE_CLASSPATH=your-installation-directory\lib\cdata.jdbc.excel.jar;%PRE_CLASSPATH%

Restart all servers; for example, run the stop and start commands in DOMAIN_HOME\bitools\bin.

Create a JDBC Data Source for Excel

After deploying the JDBC driver, you can create a JDBC data source from BI Publisher.

1. Log into BI Publisher, at the URL http://localhost:9502/analytics, for example, and click Administration -> Manage BI Publisher.
2. Click JDBC Connection -> Add Data Source.
3. Enter the following information:
   • Data Source Name: Enter the name that users will create connections to in their reports.
   • Driver Type: Select Other.
   • Database DriverClass: Enter the driver class, cdata.jdbc.excel.ExcelDriver.
   • Connection String: Enter the JDBC URL.

     Connecting to Local or Cloud-Stored (Box, Google Drive, Amazon S3, SharePoint) Excel Files

     CData Drivers let you work with Excel files stored locally and stored in cloud storage services like Box, Amazon S3, Google Drive, or SharePoint, right where they are.

     Setting connection properties for local files

     Set the URI property to local folder path.

     Setting connection properties for files stored in Amazon S3

     To connect to Excel file(s) within Amazon S3, set the URI property to the URI of the Bucket and Folder where the intended Excel files exist. In addition, at least set these properties:

     • AWSAccessKey: AWS Access Key (username)
     • AWSSecretKey: AWS Secret Key

     Setting connection properties for files stored in Box

     To connect to Excel file(s) within Box, set the URI property to the URI of the folder that includes the intended Excel file(s). Use the OAuth authentication method to connect to Box.

     Dropbox

     To connect to Excel file(s) within Dropbox, set the URI proprerty to the URI of the folder that includes the intended Excel file(s). Use the OAuth authentication method to connect to Dropbox. Either User Account or Service Account can be used to authenticate.

     SharePoint Online (SOAP)

     To connect to Excel file(s) within SharePoint with SOAP Schema, set the URI proprerty to the URI of the document library that includes the intended Excel file. Set User, Password, and StorageBaseURL.

     SharePoint Online REST

     To connect to Excel file(s) within SharePoint with REST Schema, set the URI proprerty to the URI of the document library that includes the intended Excel file. StorageBaseURL is optional. If not set, the driver will use the root drive. OAuth is used to authenticate.

     Google Drive

     To connect to Excel file(s) within Google Drive, set the URI property to the URI of the folder that includes the intended Excel file(s). Use the OAuth authentication method to connect and set InitiateOAuth to GETANDREFRESH.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Excel JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.excel.jar
     

     Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

     👁 Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)
     

     When you configure the JDBC URL, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

     A typical JDBC URL is below:

     jdbc:excel:URI='C:/MyExcelWorkbooks/SampleWorkbook.xlsx';

   • Username: Enter the username.
   • Password: Enter the password.
4. In the Security section, select the allowed user roles. 👁 The required settings for a JDBC data source. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

Create Real-Time Excel Reports

You can now create reports and analyses based on real-time Excel data. Follow the steps below to use the standard report wizard to create an interactive report that reflects any changes to Excel data.

1. On the global header, click New -> Data Model.
2. On the Diagram tab, select SQL query in the menu.
3. Enter a name for the query and in the Data Source menu select the Excel JDBC data source you created.
4. Select standard SQL and enter a query like the following:

   SELECT Name, Revenue FROM Sheet

   👁 The SQL query to be used to create the data set for the report's data model. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
5. Click View Data to generate the sample data to be used as you build your report.
6. Select the number of rows to include in the sample data, click View, and then click Save As Sample Data.
7. Click Create Report -> Use Data Model.
8. Select Guide Me and on the Select Layout page select the report objects you want to include. In this example we select Chart and Table.
9. Drop a numeric column like Revenue onto the Drop Value Here box on the y-axis. Drop a dimension column like Name onto the Drop Label Here box on the x-axis. 👁 The dimensions and measures for a chart. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
10. Click Refresh to pick up any changes to the Excel data. 👁 An interactive, refresh-on-demand report. (Salesforce is shown.)