DataBind Excel Online Data to the DevExpress Data Grid

The ADO.NET Provider for Excel Online by CData incorporates conventional ADO.NET data access components compatible with third-party controls. You can adhere to the standard ADO.NET data binding procedures to establish two-way access to real-time data through UI controls. This article will demonstrate the utilization of CData components for data binding with DevExpress UI Controls (Windows Forms and Web controls), specifically binding to a chart that visualizes live data.

You can connect to a workbook by providing authentication to Excel Online and then setting the following properties:

• : Set this to the name or Id of the workbook.

  If you want to view a list of information about the available workbooks, execute a query to the Workbooks view after you authenticate.

• : Set this to true if you are connecting to a workbook in a sandbox account. Otherwise, leave this blank to connect to a production account.

You use the OAuth authentication standard to authenticate to Excel Online. See the Getting Started section in the help documentation for a guide. Getting Started also guides you through executing SQL to worksheets and ranges.

Windows Forms Controls

The code below shows how to populate a DevExpress chart with Excel Online data. The ExcelOnlineDataAdapter binds to the Series property of the chart control. The Diagram property of the control defines the x- and y-axes as the column names.

using (ExcelOnlineConnection connection = new ExcelOnlineConnection(
"InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;")) {
 ExcelOnlineDataAdapter dataAdapter = new ExcelOnlineDataAdapter(
 "SELECT Id, Column1 FROM Test_xlsx_Sheet1", connection);
 
 DataTable table = new DataTable();
 dataAdapter.Fill(table);
 DevExpress.XtraCharts.Series series = new DevExpress.XtraCharts.Series();
 chartControl1.Series.Add(series);
 series.DataSource = table;
 series.ValueDataMembers.AddRange(new string[] { "Column1" });
 series.ArgumentScaleType = DevExpress.XtraCharts.ScaleType.Qualitative;
 series.ArgumentDataMember = "Id";
 series.ValueScaleType = DevExpress.XtraCharts.ScaleType.Numerical;
 chartControl1.Legend.Visibility = DevExpress.Utils.DefaultBoolean.False;
 ((DevExpress.XtraCharts.SideBySideBarSeriesView)series.View).ColorEach = true; 
}

Web Controls

The code below shows how to populate a DevExpress Web control with Excel Online data. The ExcelOnlineDataAdapter binds to the Series property of the chart; the Diagram property defines the x- and y-axes as the column names.

using DevExpress.XtraCharts;

using (ExcelOnlineConnection connection = new ExcelOnlineConnection(
"InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;"))
{
 ExcelOnlineDataAdapter ExcelOnlineDataAdapter1 = new ExcelOnlineDataAdapter("SELECT Id, Column1 FROM Test_xlsx_Sheet1", connection);
 DataTable table = new DataTable();
 ExcelOnlineDataAdapter1.Fill(table);
 DevExpress.XtraCharts.Series series = new Series("Series1", ViewType.Bar);
 WebChartControl1.Series.Add(series);
 series.DataSource = table;
 series.ValueDataMembers.AddRange(new string[] { "Column1" });
 series.ArgumentScaleType = ScaleType.Qualitative;
 series.ArgumentDataMember = "Id";
 series.ValueScaleType = ScaleType.Numerical;
 ((DevExpress.XtraCharts.SideBySideBarSeriesView)series.View).ColorEach = true;
}