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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/quickbase-cloud-excel-desktop.rst

⇱ Access Live Quickbase Data in Excel (Desktop) via Connect AI

Access Live Quickbase Data in Excel (Desktop) via Connect AI

👁 Dibyendu Datta
Dibyendu Datta
Lead Technology Evangelist
Use CData Connect AI to gain access to live Quickbase data from your Excel spreadsheets.

Microsoft Excel is a widely used spreadsheet software application, primarily used for tasks related to data management, analysis, and visualization. When combined with CData Connect AI, you gain immediate access to Quickbase data directly within Excel, facilitating data analysis, collaboration, calculations, and more.This article shows how to connect to Quickbase in your Connect AI instance and access and update live Quickbase data in Excel spreadsheets.

CData Connect AI provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Quickbase, allowing you to easily access live Quickbase data in Excel for the web. Simply use the Connect AI Add-In to query live data (or write your own). Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported query operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Quickbase, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Quickbase data.

This setup requires a CData Connect AI instance and the CData Connect AI Add-In for Excel. To get started, sign up a free trial of Connect AI and install the free Connect AI Excel Add-In.


Configure Quickbase Connectivity for Excel

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

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
    2. 👁 Adding a Connection
  2. Select "Quickbase" from the Add Connection panel
    3. 👁 Selecting a data source
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Quickbase.

    User Authentication Method

    To authenticate with user credentials, specify the following connection properties:

    1. Set the User and Password.
    2. If your application requires an ApplicationToken;, you must provide it otherwise an error will be thrown. You can find the ApplicationToken under SpecificApp > Settings > App management > App properties > Advanced settings > Security options > Manage Application Token.

    User Token Authentication

    To authenticate with a user token, specify the following connection properties:

    1. Set UserToken and you are ready to connect. You can find the UserToken under Quick Base > My Preferences > My User Information > Manage User Tokens.
    👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  4. Click Save & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Quickbase Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Quickbase data from Excel.

Access Live Quickbase Data in Excel

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Excel to access live Quickbase data.

  1. Open Excel, create a new sheet (or open an existing one).
  2. Click Insert and click Get Add-ins. (if you have already installed the Add-In, jump to step 4).
  3. Search for CData Connect AI Add-In and install the Add-in. 👁 Install the Add-In
  4. Click Data and open the CData Connect AI Add-In.
  5. In the Add-In panel, click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect AI instance 👁 Authorizing the Add-In
  6. In the CData Connect AI panel in Excel, click Import 👁 CData Connect AI panel in Excel
  7. Choose a Connection (e.g. QuickBase1), Table (e.g. SampleTable_1), and Columns to import 👁 CData Connect AI 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 Quickbase Data from Excel

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

  1. Update any cell or cells with changes you want to push to Quickbase (your changes will be in red)
  2. In the CData Connect AI 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 Quickbase, and a notification will appear when the update is complete

    5. Live Access to Quickbase Data from Cloud Applications

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

    👁 Imported data (Salesforce is shown)

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