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Get the Report →Excel Spreadsheet Automation with the QUERY Formula
Pull data, automate spreadsheets, and more with the QUERY formula.
The CData Excel Add-In for DB2 provides formulas that can edit, save, and delete DB2 data. The following three steps show how you can automate the following task: Search DB2 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 DB2 data records you want to retrieve or the modifications to be made, written in standard SQL.
Connection: Either the connection name, such as DB2Connection1, or a connection string. The connection string consists of the required properties for connecting to DB2 data, separated by semicolons.
Set the following properties to connect to DB2:
- Server: Set this to the name of the server running DB2.
- Port: Set this to the port the DB2 server is listening on.
- Database: Set this to the name of the DB2 database.
- User: Set this to the username of a user allowed to access the database.
- Password: Set this to the password of a user allowed to access the database.
You will also need to install the corresponding DB2 driver:
- Windows: Install the IBM Data Server Provider for .NET.
On Windows, installing the IBM Data Server Provider is sufficient, as the installation registers it in the machine.config.
- Java: Install the IBM Data Server Driver for JDBC.
In the Java version, place the IBM Data Server Driver JAR in the www\WEB-INF\lib\ folder for this application.
- 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.
- 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 DB2 data, such as ShipCity.
- 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.
- Change the filter to change the data.
=CDATAQUERY("SELECT * FROM Orders WHERE ShipCity = '"&B6&"'","Server="&B1&";Port="&B2&";User="&B3&";Password="&B4&";Database="&B5&";Provider=DB2",B7)