Excel Spreadsheet Automation with the QUERY Formula

The CData Excel Add-In for HarperDB provides formulas that can edit, save, and delete HarperDB data. The following three steps show how you can automate the following task: Search HarperDB 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 HarperDB data records you want to retrieve or the modifications to be made, written in standard SQL.

• Connection: Either the connection name, such as HarperDBConnection1, or a connection string. The connection string consists of the required properties for connecting to HarperDB data, separated by semicolons.

  Set the Server, User, and Password connection properties to connect to HarperDB. Set UseSSL to secure connections with TLS/SSL.

• 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 HarperDB data, such as Country.
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 Customers WHERE Country = '"&B4&"'","Server="&B1&";User="&B2&";Password="&B3&";Provider=HarperDB",B5)
3. Change the filter to change the data.