How to connect to WooCommerce Data from MS Excel on Mac OS X

Microsoft Excel features calculations, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language that allows users to work with data in many of the ways that suit their needs, whether on a Windows machine or a Macintosh machine. This article walks through creating a DSN for WooCommerce data in iODBC and accessing WooCommerce data in Microsoft Excel, all on a machine running Mac OS X.

Installing the CData ODBC Drivers on Mac OS X

The CData ODBC Driver for WooCommerce is preconfigured for the iODBC driver manager, as are many other products like Microsoft Excel. This makes the driver easy to use with these tools.

Licensing the Driver

In a terminal run the following commands to license the driver. To activate a trial license, omit the key input.

cd "/Applications/CData ODBC Driver for WooCommerce/bin"
sudo ./install-license <key>

Defining a DSN for iODBC with odbc.ini

You can define ODBC data sources in sections in the odbc.ini file. User data sources can only be accessed by the user account whose home folder the odbc.ini is located in. System data sources can be accessed by all users. You can find the correct odbc.ini in the following paths:

Modifying iODBC's system-wide settings requires elevated permissions; to do so, you can use following to open a text editor from the terminal:

sudo nano /Library/ODBC/odbc.ini

WooCommerce supports the following authentication methods: one-legged OAuth1.0 Authentication and standard OAuth2.0 Authentication.

Connecting using one-legged OAuth 1.0 Authentication

Specify the following properties (NOTE: the below credentials are generated from WooCommerce settings page and should not be confused with the credentials generated by using WordPress OAuth2.0 plugin):

• ConsumerKey
• ConsumerSecret

Connecting using WordPress OAuth 2.0 Authentication

After having configured the plugin, you may connect to WooCommerce by providing the following connection properties:

• OAuthClientId
• OAuthClientSecret
• CallbackURL
• InitiateOAuth - Set this to either GETANDREFRESH or REFRESH

In either case, you will need to set the Url property to the URL of the WooCommerce instance.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

In addition to the connection properties required to connect to WooCommerce, the Driver property specifies either a driver definition in the odbcinst.ini file or the path to the driver library. Place your connection properties at the beginning of odbc.ini:

[CData WooCommerce Sources]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for WooCommerce
Url = https://example.com/
 ConsumerKey = ck_ec52c76185c088ecaa3145287c8acba55a6f59ad
 ConsumerSecret = cs_9fde14bf57126156701a7563fc87575713c355e5

If you wish to authenticate using OAuth, you will need to add an additional connection property to ensure that the OAuth flow can execute properly:

Other = CheckPromptMode=False

Mac OS validates our drivers separately so you need to copy the license file to the appropriate path as well. After you have configured odbc.ini, run the following command.

sudo cp /Applications/CData ODBC Driver for WooCommerce/lib/CData.ODBC.WooCommerce.lic /Users/<YOUR_USER>/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Excel/Data/.cdata/

Additionally, in the ODBC Data Sources section, the DSN must be set to a driver defined in the odbcinst.ini file. For example, below is the entry for the DSN created during the driver install:

[ODBC Data Sources]
CData WooCommerce Source = CData ODBC Driver for WooCommerce

Registering a DSN for iODBC with odbcinst.ini

You may need to modify the installed driver definition if you change the path to the driver library. To register an ODBC driver, modify the odbcinst.ini file. With iODBC, drivers can be available to only one user account or drivers can be available system wide. You can find the correct odbcinst.ini in the following paths:

Drivers are defined in sections in the odbcinst.ini file. The section name specifies the name of the driver. In this section, the Driver property specifies the path to the driver library. The driver library is the .dylib file located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory, by default in /Applications/CData ODBC Driver for WooCommerce.

[CData ODBC Driver for WooCommerce]
Driver = /Applications/CData ODBC Driver for WooCommerce/lib/libwoocommerce.odbc.dylib

The ODBC Drivers section must also contain a property with the driver name, set to "Installed".

[ODBC Drivers]
CData ODBC Driver for WooCommerce = Installed

Testing the Connection

You can test your connection using the iODBC administrator.

1. Open a terminal and enter the following command to start the iODBC Administrator with the necessary permissions:

   sudo /Applications/iODBC/iODBC\ Administrator64.app/Contents/MacOS/iODBC\ Administrator64
   

2. On the Users tab, select CData WooCommerce Source.
3. Click the Test button.

Accessing WooCommerce Data from Microsoft Excel

You can use the DSN configured above to access WooCommerce data from Microsoft Excel.

1. Open Microsoft Excel and open a spreadsheet (new or existing).
2. Navigate to the data ribbon and select New Database Query From Database
3. Select the User or System DSN that you previously configured and click OK.
4. Build your SQL query in the Microsoft Query wizard:
5. Click Return Data to execute the query and pull data into Excel.

Using the CData ODBC Driver for WooCommerce, you can easily pull your WooCommerce data directly into Excel. Once there, you can leverage all of the powerful features native to Excel to analyze, report, transform your WooCommerce data, and more!