Access Live Snowflake Data in Excel (Desktop)



Use CData Connect Cloud to gain access to live Snowflake data from your Excel spreadsheets.

Microsoft Excel is a widely used spreadsheet software application, primarily used for tasks related to data management, analysis, and visualization. When combined with CData Connect Cloud, you gain immediate access to Snowflake data directly within Excel, facilitating data analysis, collaboration, calculations, and more.This article shows how to connect to Snowflake in your Connect Cloud instance and access and update live Snowflake data in Excel spreadsheets.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Snowflake, allowing you to easily access live Snowflake data in Excel for the web. Simply use the Connect Cloud Add-In to query live data (or write your own). Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Cloud pushes all supported query operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Snowflake, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Snowflake data.

This setup requires a CData Connect Cloud instance and the CData Connect Cloud Add-In for Excel. To get started, sign up a free trial of Connect Cloud and install the free Connect Cloud Excel Add-In.


Configure Snowflake Connectivity for Excel

Connectivity to Snowflake from Excel is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Snowflake data from Excel, we start by creating and configuring a Snowflake connection.

  1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
  2. Select "Snowflake" from the Add Connection panel
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Snowflake.

    To connect to Snowflake:

    1. Set User and Password to your Snowflake credentials and set the AuthScheme property to PASSWORD or OKTA.
    2. Set URL to the URL of the Snowflake instance (i.e.: https://myaccount.snowflakecomputing.com).
    3. Set Warehouse to the Snowflake warehouse.
    4. (Optional) Set Account to your Snowflake account if your URL does not conform to the format above.
    5. (Optional) Set Database and Schema to restrict the tables and views exposed.

    See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for more information.

  4. Click Create & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Snowflake Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Snowflake data from Excel.

Access Live Snowflake Data in Excel

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Cloud from Excel to access live Snowflake data.

  1. Open Excel, create a new sheet (or open an existing one).
  2. Click Insert and click Get Add-ins. (if you have already installed the Add-In, jump to step 4).
  3. Search for CData Connect Cloud Add-In and install the Add-in.
  4. Click Data and open the CData Connect Cloud Add-In.
  5. In the Add-In panel, click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect Cloud instance
  6. In the CData Connect Cloud panel in Excel, click Import
  7. Choose a Connection (e.g. Snowflake1), Table (e.g. Products), and Columns to import
  8. Optionally add Filters, Sorting, and a Limit
  9. Click Execute to import the data

Update Snowflake Data from Excel

In addition to viewing Snowflake data in Excel, CData Connect Cloud also lets you update and delete Snowflake data. Begin by importing data (as described above).

  1. Update any cell or cells with changes you want to push to Snowflake (your changes will be in red)
  2. In the CData Connect Cloud Add-In panel, select Update
  3. Optionally highlight the cell(s) you wish to update and select an update option ("Update All" or "Update Selected")
  4. Click Execute to push the updates to Snowflake

A notification will appear when the update is complete

Live Access to Snowflake Data from Cloud Applications

New, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Snowflake data from your Excel workbook. You can add more data to your workbook for calculations, aggregations, collaboration, and more.

Try CData Connect Cloud and get real-time data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.

Ready to get started?

Learn more about CData Connect Cloud or sign up for free trial access:

Free Trial