Create Reports from Excel Online Data in Looker Studio

Looker Studio, formerly known as Google Data Studio, empowers users to craft customized reports featuring data visualizations that can be shared with clients while reflecting your brand identity. When combined with CData Connect AI, you gain immediate cloud-to-cloud access to Excel Online data to create visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article provides step-by-step instructions on establishing a virtual database for Excel Online and generating reports from Excel Online data within Looker Studio.

CData Connect AI offers a seamless cloud-to-cloud interface tailored for Excel Online, making it straightforward to construct reports directly from live Excel Online data within Looker Studio without the need for data replication. As you create visualizations, Looker Studio generates queries to retrieve data. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently channels all supported query operations, including filters, JOINs, and more, directly to Excel Online. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly provide the requested Excel Online data.

Configure Excel Online Connectivity for Looker Studio

Connectivity to Excel Online from Looker Studio is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Excel Online data from Looker Studio, we start by creating and configuring a Excel Online connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
👁 Adding a Connection

2. Select "Excel Online" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Excel Online.

   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.

   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Excel Online Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions
   

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Excel Online data from Looker Studio.

Visualize Live Excel Online Data from Looker Studio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Looker Studio to create a new Excel Online data source and build a simple visualization from the data.

1. Log into Looker Studio, click data sources, create a new data source, and choose CData Connect AI Connector.
👁 Create a new connection in Looker Studio

2. Click Authorize and allow access to your Google account. 👁 Granting permissions to the Connector
   
3. Click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect AI instance 👁 Authenticating with CData Connect AI
   
4. In the CData Connect AI Connector in Looker Studio select Connections to import from the dropdown and click Next
👁 Importing from Connections

5. Now select a Connection (e.g. ExcelOnline1) and click Next 👁 Selecting a Connection
   
6. Select a Table (e.g. Test_xlsx_Sheet1) or use a Custom Query and click Connect to continue 👁 Selecting a Table
   
7. If needed, modify columns, click Create Report, and add the data source to the report.
👁 Configuring column definitions

8. Select a visualization style and add it to the report.
9. Select Dimensions and Measures to customize your visualization.
👁 Visualizing Excel Online data in Looker Studio

Live Access to Excel Online Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Excel Online data from your Looker Studio workbook. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating Excel Online data.

Try CData Connect AI and get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.