Excel Spreadsheet Automation on AfterShip Data with the QUERY Formula

The CData Excel Add-In for AfterShip provides formulas that can query AfterShip data. The following three steps show how you can automate the following task: Search AfterShip 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 AfterShip data records you want to retrieve, written in standard SQL.

• Connection: Either the connection name, such as APIConnection1, or a connection string. The connection string consists of the required properties for connecting to AfterShip data, separated by semicolons.

  Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the AfterShip Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Aftership.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for AfterShip (see below).

  AfterShip API Profile Settings

  Obtain your API key from the AfterShip account management panel by navigating to My Account > Settings > API Keys.

• 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 AfterShip data, such as Name.
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 AllCouriers WHERE Name = '"&B4&"'","Profile="&B1&";ProfileSettings="&B2&";Provider=API",B5)


3. Change the filter to change the data.