VOOZH about

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

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

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

👁 Dibyendu Datta
Dibyendu Datta
Lead Technology Evangelist
Use CData Connect AI to gain access to live Snowflake 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 Snowflake data directly within Excel, facilitating data analysis, collaboration, calculations, and more.This article shows how to connect to Snowflake in your Connect AI instance and access and update live Snowflake data in Excel spreadsheets.

CData Connect AI provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Snowflake, allowing you to easily access live Snowflake 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 Snowflake, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Snowflake data.

About Snowflake Data Integration

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

  • Reads and write Snowflake data quickly and efficiently.
  • Dynamically obtain metadata for the specified Warehouse, Database, and Schema.
  • Authenticate in a variety of ways, including OAuth, OKTA, Azure AD, Azure Managed Service Identity, PingFederate, private key, and more.

Many CData users use CData solutions to access Snowflake from their preferred tools and applications, and replicate data from their disparate systems into Snowflake for comprehensive warehousing and analytics.

For more information on integrating Snowflake with CData solutions, refer to our blog: https://www.cdata.com/blog/snowflake-integrations.


Getting Started


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 Snowflake Connectivity for Excel

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

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

    To connect to Snowflake:

    1. Set User and Password to your Snowflake credentials and set the AuthScheme property to PASSWORD or OKTA.
    2. Set URL to the URL of the Snowflake instance (i.e.: https://myaccount.snowflakecomputing.com).
    3. Set Warehouse to the Snowflake warehouse.
    4. (Optional) Set Account to your Snowflake account if your URL does not conform to the format above.
    5. (Optional) Set Database and Schema to restrict the tables and views exposed.
    6. (Optional) If MFA is enabled on your Snowflake account (via Duo Security), set MFACode to the passcode generated by your Duo authenticator app.

    See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for more information.

    👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  4. Click Save & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Snowflake Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions

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

Access Live Snowflake Data in Excel

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Excel to access live Snowflake 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. Snowflake1), Table (e.g. Products), 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 Snowflake Data from Excel

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

  1. Update any cell or cells with changes you want to push to Snowflake (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 Snowflake, and a notification will appear when the update is complete

    5. Live Access to Snowflake Data from Cloud Applications

    Now, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Snowflake 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.

Ready to get started?

Learn more about CData Connect AI or sign up for free trial access:

Free Trial