Connect to Live Excel Online Data in PostGresSQL Interface through CData Connect AI

There are a vast number of PostgreSQL clients available on the Internet. PostgreSQL is a popular interface for data access. When you pair PostgreSQL with CData Connect AI, you gain database-like access to live Excel Online data from PostgreSQL. In this article, we walk through the process of connecting to Excel Online data in Connect AI and establishing a connection between Connect AI and PostgreSQL using a TDS foreign data wrapper (FDW).

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for Excel Online, allowing you to query data from Excel Online without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Excel Online, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Excel Online data quickly.

Connect to Excel Online in Connect AI

CData Connect AI uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources.

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
   

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the PAT a name and click Create. 👁 Creating a new PAT
   
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to Excel Online data from PostgreSQL.

Build the TDS Foreign Data Wrapper

The Foreign Data Wrapper can be installed as an extension to PostgreSQL, without recompiling PostgreSQL. The tds_fdw extension is used as an example (https://github.com/tds-fdw/tds_fdw).

1. You can clone and build the git repository via something like the following view source:

   sudo apt-get install git
   git clone https://github.com/tds-fdw/tds_fdw.git
   cd tds_fdw
   make USE_PGXS=1
   sudo make USE_PGXS=1 install
   

   Note: If you have several PostgreSQL versions and you do not want to build for the default one, first locate where the binary for pg_config is, take note of the full path, and then append PG_CONFIG=
2. After you finish the installation, then start the server:

   sudo service postgresql start
   

3. Then go inside the Postgres database

   psql -h localhost -U postgres -d postgres
   

   Note: Instead of localhost you can put the IP where your PostgreSQL is hosted.

Connect to Excel Online data as a PostgreSQL Database and query the data!

After you have installed the extension, follow the steps below to start executing queries to Excel Online data:

1. Log into your database.
2. Load the extension for the database:

   CREATE EXTENSION tds_fdw;
   

3. Create a server object for Excel Online data:

   CREATE SERVER "ExcelOnline1" FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER tds_fdw OPTIONS (servername'tds.cdata.com', port '14333', database 'ExcelOnline1');
   

4. Configure user mapping with your email and Personal Access Token from your Connect AI account:

   CREATE USER MAPPING for postgres SERVER "ExcelOnline1" OPTIONS (username '[email protected]', password 'your_personal_access_token' );
   

5. Create the local schema:

   CREATE SCHEMA "ExcelOnline1";
   

6. Create a foreign table in your local database:

   #Using a table_name definition:
   
   CREATE FOREIGN TABLE "ExcelOnline1".Test_xlsx_Sheet1 ( 
   id varchar, 
   Column1 varchar) 
   SERVER "ExcelOnline1"
   OPTIONS(table_name 'ExcelOnline.Test_xlsx_Sheet1', row_estimate_method 'showplan_all');
   
   #Or using a schema_name and table_name definition:
   
   CREATE FOREIGN TABLE "ExcelOnline1".Test_xlsx_Sheet1 ( 
   id varchar, 
   Column1 varchar) 
   SERVER "ExcelOnline1"
   OPTIONS (schema_name 'ExcelOnline', table_name 'Test_xlsx_Sheet1', row_estimate_method 'showplan_all');
   
   #Or using a query definition:
   
   CREATE FOREIGN TABLE "ExcelOnline1".Test_xlsx_Sheet1 (
   id varchar, 
   Column1 varchar) 
   SERVER "ExcelOnline1"
   OPTIONS (query 'SELECT * FROM ExcelOnline.Test_xlsx_Sheet1', row_estimate_method 'showplan_all');
   
   #Or setting a remote column name:
   
   CREATE FOREIGN TABLE "ExcelOnline1".Test_xlsx_Sheet1 (
   id varchar,
   col2 varchar OPTIONS (column_name 'Column1'))
   SERVER "ExcelOnline1"
   OPTIONS (schema_name 'ExcelOnline', table_name 'Test_xlsx_Sheet1', row_estimate_method 'showplan_all');
   

7. You can now execute read/write commands to Excel Online:

   SELECT id, Column1
   FROM "ExcelOnline1".Test_xlsx_Sheet1;
   

More Information & Free Trial

Now, you have created a simple query from live Excel Online data. For more information on connecting to Excel Online (and more than 200 other data sources), visit the Connect AI page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live Excel Online data in PostgreSQL.