Excel Spreadsheet Automation on ServiceDesk Plus Data with the QUERY Formula

The CData Excel Add-In for ServiceDesk Plus provides formulas that can query ServiceDesk Plus data. The following three steps show how you can automate the following task: Search ServiceDesk Plus data for a user-specified value and then organize the results into an Excel spreadsheet.

The syntax of the CDATAQUERY formula is the following:

=CDATAQUERY(Query, [Connection], [Parameters], [ResultLocation]);

This formula requires three inputs:

• Query: The declaration of the ServiceDesk Plus data records you want to retrieve, written in standard SQL.

• Connection: Either the connection name, such as APIConnection1, or a connection string. The connection string consists of the required properties for connecting to ServiceDesk Plus data, separated by semicolons.

  Using OAuth Authentication

  ServiceDeskPlus uses Zoho OAuth 2.0 for secure authentication. To set up OAuth access:

  1. Register your application in the Zoho Developer Console at https://api-console.zoho.com
  2. Configure your redirect URI to match your application setup
  3. Note your Client ID and Client Secret from the application settings

  After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

  • AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
  • OAuthClientId: Set this to your Zoho application Client ID.
  • OAuthClientSecret: Set this to your Zoho application Client Secret.
  • Scope: Set this to the required ServiceDeskPlus permissions (default includes read access to requests, problems, assets, and projects).
  • Domain: Set this to your ServiceDeskPlus domain
  • Portal: Set this to your ServiceDeskPlus portal

  Example Connection String

  Profile=C:\profiles\ServiceDeskPlus.apip;ProfileSettings="Portal=itdesk;Domain=.in;Scope=SDPOnDemand.requests.READ SDPOnDemand.problems.READ SDPOnDemand.assets.READ SDPOnDemand.projects.READ";AuthScheme=OAuth;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;
  

• ResultLocation: The cell that the output of results should start from.

Pass Spreadsheet Cells as Inputs to the Query

The procedure below results in a spreadsheet that organizes all the formula inputs in the first column.

1. Define cells for the formula inputs. In addition to the connection inputs, add another input to define a criterion for a filter to be used to search ServiceDesk Plus data, such as AnnouncementId.
2. In another cell, write the formula, referencing the cell values from the user input cells defined above. Single quotes are used to enclose values such as addresses that may contain spaces.

=CDATAQUERY("SELECT * FROM AnnouncementComments WHERE AnnouncementId = '"&B9&"'","Profile="&B1&";ProfileSettings="&B2&";Domain="&B3&";Scope="&B4&";AuthScheme="&B5&";OAuthClientId="&B6&";OAuthClientSecret="&B7&";Provider=API",B10)

👁 Formula inputs used in this example. (Google Apps is shown.)

3. Change the filter to change the data. 👁 The outputs of the formula. (Google Apps is shown.)