How to Connect to & Open Certinia Data in Microsoft Excel

The CData ODBC driver for Certinia uses the standard ODBC interface to link Certinia data with applications like Microsoft Access and Excel. Follow the steps below to use Microsoft Query to import Certinia data into a spreadsheet and provide values to a parameterized query from cells in a spreadsheet.

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

There are several authentication methods available for connecting to Certinia: login credentials, SSO, and OAuth.

Authenticating with a Login and Token

Set the User and Password to your login credentials. Additionally, set the SecurityToken. By default, the SecurityToken is required, but you can make it optional by allowing a range of trusted IP addresses.

To disable the security token:

1. Log in to Certinia and enter "Network Access" in the Quick Find box in the setup section.
2. Add your IP address to the list of trusted IP addresses.

To obtain the security token:

1. Open the personal information page on certinia.com.
2. Click the link to reset your security token. The token will be emailed to you.
3. Specify the security token in the SecurityToken connection property or append it to the Password.

Authenticating with OAuth

If you do not have access to the user name and password or do not want to require them, use the OAuth user consent flow. See the OAuth section in the Help for an authentication guide.

Connecting to Certinia Sandbox Accounts

Set UseSandbox to true (false by default) to use a Certinia sandbox account. Ensure that you specify a sandbox user name in User.

You can then work with live Certinia data in Excel.

1. In Excel, open the Data tab and choose Get Data -> From Other Sources -> From Microsoft Query.
2. Choose the Certinia DSN. Select the option to use Query Wizard to create/edit queries.
3. In the Query Wizard, expand the node for the table you would like to import into your spreadsheet. Select the columns you want to import and click the arrow to add them to your query. Alternatively, select the table name to add all columns for that table.
4. The Filter Data page allows you to specify criteria. For example, you can limit results by setting a date range.
5. If you want to use parameters in your query, select the option to edit the query in Microsoft Query.

6. To set a parameter in the query, you will need to modify the SQL statement directly. To do this, click the SQL button in the Query Editor. If you set filter criteria earlier, you should have a WHERE clause already in the query.

   To use a parameter, use a "?" character as the wildcard character for a field's value in the WHERE clause. For example, if you are importing the Account, you can set "Industry=?".

7. Close the SQL dialog when you are finished editing the SQL statement. You will be prompted to enter a parameter value. In the next step, you will select a cell to provide this value. So, leave the box in the dialog blank.

8. Click File -> Return Data to Microsoft Excel. The Import Data dialog is displayed. Enter a cell where results should be imported.

9. Close the Import Data dialog. You will be prompted to enter a parameter value. Click the button next to the parameter box to select a cell. Select the option to automatically refresh the spreadsheet when the value changes.