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⇱ Excel Spreadsheet Automation on Xero Data with the QUERY Formula

Excel Spreadsheet Automation on Xero Data with the QUERY Formula

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

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

About Xero Data Integration

Accessing and integrating live data from Xero has never been easier with CData. Customers rely on CData connectivity to:

  • Connect to Xero Accounts and both US and Australian Payroll APIs.
  • Read, write, update, and delete Xero objects like Customers, Transactions, Invoices, Sales Receipts and more.
  • Use SQL stored procedures for actions like adding items to a cart, submitting orders, and downloading attachments.
  • Work with accounting, payroll, file, fixed asset, and project data.

Customers regularly integrate their Xero data with preferred tools, like Tableau, Qlik Sense, or Excel, and integrate Xero data into 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 Xero data records you want to retrieve or the modifications to be made, written in standard SQL.

  • Connection: Either the connection name, such as XeroConnection1, or a connection string. The connection string consists of the required properties for connecting to Xero data, separated by semicolons.

    To connect, set the Schema connection property in addition to any authentication values. Xero offers authentication for private applications, public applications, and partner applications. Set the XeroAppAuthentication property to PUBLIC, PRIVATE, or PARTNER, depending on the type of application configured. To connect from a private application, you will additionally need to set the OAuthAccessToken, OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, CertificateStoreType, CertificateStore, and CertificateStorePassword.

    To connect from a public or partner application, you can use the embedded OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL, or you can register an app to obtain your own OAuth values.

    See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide to authenticating to Xero.

  • 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 Xero data, such as Name.
  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 Items WHERE Name = '"&B2&"'","InitiateOAuth="&B1&";Provider=Xero",B3)
    👁 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 Xero to get started:

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Learn more:

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Excel Add-In for Xero

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

Use Excel to read, write, and update Xero Customers, Transactions, Invoices, Sales Receipts, etc. Perfect for mass imports / exports / updates, data cleansing & de-duplication, Excel based data analysis, and more!