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

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 Spark data directly within Excel, facilitating data analysis, collaboration, calculations, and more.This article shows how to connect to Spark in your Connect AI instance and access and update live Spark data in Excel spreadsheets.

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

Configure Spark Connectivity for Excel

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

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
👁 Adding a Connection

2. Select "Spark" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Spark.

   Set the Server, Database, User, and Password connection properties to connect to SparkSQL.

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

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

Access Live Spark Data in Excel

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Excel to access live Spark 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. SparkSQL1), Table (e.g. Customers), 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 Spark Data from Excel

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

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

Live Access to Spark Data from Cloud Applications

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