Access Live Lakebase Data in Excel for the Web (Excel 365/Online) through Connect Spreadsheets

Microsoft Excel for the web represents a cloud-native iteration of Microsoft Excel. When combined with Connect Spreadsheets by CData, you gain immediate access to Lakebase data directly within Excel, facilitating data analysis, collaboration, calculations, and more. This article shows how to connect to Lakebase in Connect Spreadsheets and access and update live Lakebase data in Excel spreadsheets online.

Connect Spreadsheets is the easiest way to get all your live data into Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets - no more downloading, wrangling, and uploading files again. Just connect to your data, select the dataset you'd like to see, and import it into your spreadsheet.

Configure Lakebase Connectivity for Excel

Connectivity to Lakebase from Excel is made possible through Connect Spreadsheets . To work with Lakebase data from Excel, we start by creating and configuring a Lakebase connection.

1. Log into Connect Spreadsheets, click Sources and click Add Connection 👁 Adding a Connection
   
2. Select "Lakebase" from the Add Connection panel 👁 Selecting a data source
   
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Lakebase. To connect to Databricks Lakebase, start by setting the following properties:
   • DatabricksInstance: The Databricks instance or server hostname, provided in the format instance-abcdef12-3456-7890-abcd-abcdef123456.database.cloud.databricks.com.
   • Server: The host name or IP address of the server hosting the Lakebase database.
   • Port (optional): The port of the server hosting the Lakebase database, set to 5432 by default.
   • Database (optional): The database to connect to after authenticating to the Lakebase Server, set to the authenticating user's default database by default.

   OAuth Client Authentication

   To authenicate using OAuth client credentials, you need to configure an OAuth client in your service principal. In short, you need to do the following:

   1. Create and configure a new service principal
   2. Assign permissions to the service principal
   3. Create an OAuth secret for the service principal

   For more information, refer to the Setting Up OAuthClient Authentication section in the Help documentation.

   OAuth PKCE Authentication

   To authenticate using the OAuth code type with PKCE (Proof Key for Code Exchange), set the following properties:

   • AuthScheme: OAuthPKCE.
   • User: The authenticating user's user ID.

   For more information, refer to the Help documentation.

   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. Click Create & Test

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Lakebase data from Excel for the web.

Access Live Lakebase Data in Excel for the web

The steps below outline connecting to Connect Spreadsheets from Excel to access live Lakebase data.

1. Log into Excel, create a new sheet (or open an existing one).
2. Click Insert and click Office Add-ins. (If you have already installed the Add-In, jump to step 4.)
3. Search for Connect Spreadsheets and click "Get it now" to install the Add-in. 👁 Install the Add-In
   
4. Back in Excel, open the Data ribbon select and click the CData Connect Spreadsheets "Get Data" button. 👁 Open Add in panel
   
5. In the Add-In panel, click "Log in" to sign into and authenticate with your Connect Spreadsheets account 👁 Authorizing the Add-In
   
6. In the Connect Spreadsheets panel in Excel, click Import 👁 Connect Spreadsheets panel in Excel
   
7. Choose a Connection (e.g. Lakebase1), Table (e.g. Orders), and Columns to import 👁 Connect Spreadsheets panel in Excel
   
8. Optionally add Filters, Sorting, and a Limit 👁 Choosing a Connection, Table, and Columns
   
9. Click Execute to import the data 👁 Executing the Query
   

Update Lakebase Data from Excel

In addition to viewing Lakebase data in Excel, Connect Spreadsheets also lets you update and delete Lakebase data. Begin by importing data (as described above).

1. Update any cell or cells with changes you want to push to Lakebase
2. In the Connect Spreadsheets Add-In panel, select Update
3. Optionally highlight the cell(s) you wish to update and select an update option ("Update All" or "Update Selected") 👁 Executing the update (Salesforce is shown).
   
4. Click Execute to push the updates to Lakebase

A notification will appear when the update is complete.

Live Access to Lakebase Data from Spreadsheets

New, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Lakebase data from your Excel workbook. You can add more data to your workbook for calculations, aggregations, collaboration, and more.

Try Connect Spreadsheets and get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your spreadsheet apps.