Excel Spreadsheet Automation on Zoho Recruit Data with the QUERY Formula

The CData Excel Add-In for Zoho Recruit provides formulas that can query Zoho Recruit data. The following three steps show how you can automate the following task: Search Zoho Recruit 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 Zoho Recruit 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 Zoho Recruit data, separated by semicolons.

  To authenticate to ZohoRecruit, and connect to your own data or to allow other users to connect to their data, you can use the OAuth standard.

  Using OAuth Authentication

  First, you will need to register an OAuth application with ZohoRecruit. To do so, go to the Zoho Developer Console, add a new Client (Server-based application) and set a valid OAuth redirect URL. Your OAuth application will be assigned a client id and a client secret. Additionally, you will need to set the relevant Domain (.com, .eu, .in, .com.cn, or .jp), which defaults to .com.

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

  • AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
  • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage the process to obtain the OAuthAccessToken.
  • OAuthClientId: Set this to the client_id that is specified in your app settings.
  • OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client_secret that is specified in your app settings.
  • CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI that is specified in your app settings.
  • Domain: Set this in ProfileSettings to your ZohoRecruit account domain (e.g. .com, .eu, .in, .com.cn, .jp).

  Example connection string:

  Profile=C:\profiles\ZohoRecruit.apip;ProfileSettings='Domain=.com';AuthScheme=OAuth;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;CallbackUrl=your_callback_url;
  

• 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 Zoho Recruit data, such as Module.
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 Attachments WHERE Module = '"&B9&"'","Profile="&B1&";ProfileSettings="&B2&";AuthScheme="&B3&";InitiateOAuth="&B4&";OAuthClientId="&B5&";OAuthClientSecret="&B6&";CallbackUrl="&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.)