Automated Continuous Excel Online Replication to Databricks

Always-on applications rely on automatic failover capabilities and real-time data access. CData Sync integrates live Excel Online data into your Databricks instance, allowing you to consolidate all of your data into a single location for archiving, reporting, analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence and more.

Configure Databricks as a Replication Destination

Using CData Sync, you can replicate Excel Online data to Databricks. To add a replication destination, navigate to the Connections tab.

1. Click Add Connection. 👁 Add a new connection.
   
2. Select the Destinations tab and locate the Databricks connector. 👁 Configure a Destination connection to Databricks.
   
3. Click the Configure Connection icon at the end of that row to open the New Connection page. If the Configure Connection icon is not available, click the Download Connector icon to install the Databricks connector. For more information about installing new connectors, see Connections in the Help documentation.
4. To connect to Databricks, set the following connection properties:
   • Connection Name: Enter a connection name of your choice for the Databricks connection.
   • Server: Enter the host name or the IP address of the server that hosts the Databricks database.
   • HTTP Path: Enter the HTTP path of your Databricks cluster.
   • Catalog: Enter the Databricks catalog name.
   • Auth Scheme: Select the authentication scheme. PersonalAccessToken is the default setting.
   • Token: Specify your personal access token in this field. To locate your access token, click the Access Tokens tab on the User Settings page in your Databricks instance.
   • Database: Enter the name of your Databricks database.
👁 Enter the connection details.

5. Once connected, click Create & Test to create, test and save the connection.

You are now connected to Databricks and can use it as both a source and a destination.

NOTE: You can use the Label feature to add a label for a source or a destination.

👁 Add a label.

In this article, we will demonstrate how to load Excel Online data into Databricks and utilize it as a destination.

Configure the Excel Online Connection

You can configure a connection to Excel Online from the Connections tab. To add a connection to your Excel Online account, navigate to the Connections tab.

1. Click Add Connection.
2. Select a source (Excel Online).
3. Configure the connection properties.
   
   

   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 Source connection (Salesforce is shown).
   
4. Click Connect to Excel Online to ensure that the connection is configured properly.
5. Click Save & Test to save the changes.

Configure Replication Queries

CData Sync enables you to control replication with a point-and-click interface and with SQL queries. For each replication you wish to configure, navigate to the Jobs tab and click Add Job. Select the Source and Destination for your replication.

👁 Select Source and Destination connections for the replication.

Replicate Entire Tables

To replicate an entire table, navigate to the Task tab in the Job, click Add Tasks, choose the table(s) from the list of Excel Online tables you wish to replicate into Databricks, and click Add Tasks again.

👁 Choose entire tables to replicate (Salesforce is shown).

Customize Your Replication

You can use the Columns and Query tabs of a task to customize your replication. The Columns tab allows you to specify which columns to replicate, rename the columns at the destination, and even perform operations on the source data before replicating. The Query tab allows you to add filters, grouping, and sorting to the replication with the help of SQL queries. 👁 Configure a replication Transform.

Schedule Your Replication

Select the Overview tab in the Job, and click Configure under Schedule. You can schedule a job to run automatically by configuring it to run at specified intervals, ranging from once every 10 minutes to once every month.

👁 Schedule your job to run automatically.

Once you have configured the replication job, click Save Changes. You can configure any number of jobs to manage the replication of your Excel Online data to Databricks.

Run the Replication Job

Once all the required configurations are made for the job, select the Excel Online table you wish to replicate and click Run. After the replication completes successfully, a notification appears, showing the time taken to run the job and the number of rows replicated.

👁 Run the job.

Free Trial & More Information

Now that you have seen how to replicate Excel Online data into Databricks, visit our CData Sync page to explore more about CData Sync and download a free 30-day trial. Start consolidating your enterprise data today!

As always, our world-class Support Team is ready to answer any questions you may have.