Excel Spreadsheet Automation with the QUERY Formula

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

• Connection: Either the connection name, such as DynamicsGPConnection1, or a connection string. The connection string consists of the required properties for connecting to Dynamics GP data, separated by semicolons.

  To authenticate set the User and Password connection properties.

  To connect set the URL to the Web services endpoint; for example, http://{servername}:{port}/Dynamics/GPService. Additionally, set CompanyId; you can obtain this value in the company setup window: Click Tools -> Setup -> Company.

  By default, data summaries are not returned to save performance. Set LookupIds to true to return details such as line items; however, note that entities must be retrieved one at a time.

• 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 Dynamics GP data, such as CustomerName.
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 SalesInvoice WHERE CustomerName = '"&B5&"'","CompanyId="&B1&";user="&B2&";password="&B3&";URL="&B4&";Provider=DynamicsGP",B6)
3. Change the filter to change the data.