Access Live Avro 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 Avro data directly within Excel, facilitating data analysis, collaboration, calculations, and more.This article shows how to connect to Avro in your Connect AI instance and access live Avro data in Excel spreadsheets.

CData Connect AI provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Avro, allowing you to easily access live Avro 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 Avro, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Avro data.

Configure Avro Connectivity for Excel

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

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

2. Select "Avro" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Avro. Connect to your local Avro file(s) by setting the URI connection property to the location of the Avro file.
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Avro Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

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

Access Live Avro Data in Excel

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Excel to access live Avro 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. Avro1), Table (e.g. SampleTable_1), and Columns to import
8. Optionally add Filters, Sorting, and a Limit
9. Click Execute to import the data

Live Access to Avro Data from Cloud Applications

Now, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Avro 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.