Access Live Aha! Data in Excel (Desktop) via Connect AI

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 AI, you gain immediate access to Aha! data directly within Excel, facilitating data analysis, collaboration, calculations, and more.This article shows how to connect to Aha! in your Connect AI instance and access live Aha! data in Excel spreadsheets.

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

Configure Aha! Connectivity for Excel

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

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "Aha!" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Aha!.

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

   Aha! API Profile Settings

   The Aha! API uses OAuth-based authentication.

   You will first need to register an OAuth app with Aha!. This can be done from your Aha! account under 'Settings' > 'Personal' > 'Developer' > 'OAuth Applications'. Additionally, set the Domain, found in the domain name of your Aha account. For example if your Aha account is acmeinc.aha.io, then the Domain should be 'acmeinc'.

   After setting the following in the connection string, you are ready to connect:

   • AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
   • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage the process to obtain the OAuthAccessToken.
   • OAuthClientId: Set this to the client_id that is specified in you app settings.
   • OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client_secret that is specified in you app settings.
   • CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI you specified in your app settings.
   • Domain: Set this in the ProfileSettings to your Aha domain.
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Aha! Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

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

Access Live Aha! Data in Excel

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Excel to access live Aha! 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 AI Add-In and install the Add-in.
4. Click Data and open the CData Connect AI Add-In.
5. In the Add-In panel, click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect AI instance
6. In the CData Connect AI panel in Excel, click Import
7. Choose a Connection (e.g. API1), Table (e.g. Ideas), and Columns to import
8. Optionally add Filters, Sorting, and a Limit
9. Click Execute to import the data

Live Access to Aha! Data from Cloud Applications

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

Try CData Connect AI and get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.