Excel Spreadsheet Automation with the QUERY Formula

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

• Connection: Either the connection name, such as GoogleDirectoryConnection1, or a connection string. The connection string consists of the required properties for connecting to Google Directory data, separated by semicolons.

  Google uses the OAuth authentication standard. You can authorize the data provider to access Google Spreadsheets as an individual user or with a Google Apps Domain service account. See the Getting Started section of the data provider help documentation for an authentication guide.

• 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 Google Directory data, such as Status.
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 MyTable WHERE Status = '"&B4&"'","OAuthClientId="&B1&";OAuthClientSecret="&B2&";CallbackURL="&B3&";Provider=GoogleDirectory",B5)
3. Change the filter to change the data.