VOOZH about

URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/servicenow-excel-cdataquery.rst

⇱ Excel Spreadsheet Automation on ServiceNow Data with the QUERY Formula

Excel Spreadsheet Automation on ServiceNow Data with the QUERY Formula

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Pull data from ServiceNow, automate spreadsheets, and more with the QUERY formula.

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

About ServiceNow Data Integration

CData simplifies access and integration of live ServiceNow data. Our customers leverage CData connectivity to:

  • Get optimized performance since CData uses the REST API for data and the SOAP API for schema.
  • Read, write, update, and delete ServiceNow objects like Schedules, Timelines, Questions, Syslogs and more.
  • Use SQL stored procedures for actions like adding items to a cart, submitting orders, and downloading attachments.
  • Securely authenticate with ServiceNow, including basic (username and password), OKTA, ADFS, OneLogin, and PingFederate authentication schemes.

Many users access live ServiceNow data from preferred analytics tools like Tableau, Power BI, and Excel, and use CData solutions to integrate ServiceNow data with their database or data warehouse.


Getting Started


The syntax of the CDATAQUERY formula is the following: 

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

This formula requires three inputs:

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

  • Connection: Either the connection name, such as ServiceNowConnection1, or a connection string. The connection string consists of the required properties for connecting to ServiceNow data, separated by semicolons.

    ServiceNow uses the OAuth 2.0 authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, register an OAuth app with ServiceNow to obtain the OAuthClientId and OAuthClientSecret connection properties. In addition to the OAuth values, specify the Instance, Username, and Password connection properties.

    See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for a guide on connecting to ServiceNow.

  • 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 ServiceNow data, such as category.
  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.
    3. =CDATAQUERY("SELECT * FROM incident WHERE category = '"&B7&"'","OAuthClientId="&B1&";OAuthClientSecret="&B2&";Username="&B3&";Password="&B4&";URL="&B5&";InitiateOAuth="&B6&";Provider=ServiceNow",B8)
    👁 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.)

Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the Excel Add-In for ServiceNow to get started:

 Download Now

Learn more:

👁 ServiceNow Icon
Excel Add-In for ServiceNow

The ServiceNow Excel Add-In is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live ServiceNow data, directly from Microsoft Excel.

Use Excel to read, write, and update Schedules, Timelines, Questions, Syslogs, etc. Perfect for mass imports / exports / updates, data cleansing & de-duplication, Excel based data analysis, and more!