Excel Spreadsheet Automation with the QUERY Formula

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

• Connection: Either the connection name, such as DominoConnection1, or a connection string. The connection string consists of the required properties for connecting to HCL Domino data, separated by semicolons.

  Connecting to Domino

  To connect to Domino data, set the following properties:

  • URL: The host name or IP of the server hosting the Domino database. Include the port of the server hosting the Domino database. For example: http://sampleserver:1234/
  • DatabaseScope: The name of a scope in the Domino Web UI. The driver exposes forms and views for the schema governed by the specified scope. In the Domino Admin UI, select the Scopes menu in the sidebar. Set this property to the name of an existing scope.

  Authenticating with Domino

  Domino supports authenticating via login credentials or an Azure Active Directory OAuth application:

  Login Credentials

  To authenticate with login credentials, set the following properties:

  • AuthScheme: Set this to "OAuthPassword"
  • User: The username of the authenticating Domino user
  • Password: The password associated with the authenticating Domino user

  The driver uses the login credentials to automatically perform an OAuth token exchange.

  AzureAD

  This authentication method uses Azure Active Directory as an IdP to obtain a JWT token. You need to create a custom OAuth application in Azure Active Directory and configure it as an IdP. To do so, follow the instructions in the Help documentation. Then set the following properties:

  • AuthScheme: Set this to "AzureAD"
  • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
  • OAuthClientId: The Client ID obtained when setting up the custom OAuth application.
  • OAuthClientSecret: The Client secret obtained when setting up the custom OAuth application.
  • CallbackURL: The redirect URI defined when you registered your app. For example: https://localhost:33333
  • AzureTenant: The Microsoft Online tenant being used to access data. Supply either a value in the form companyname.microsoft.com or the tenant ID.

    The tenant ID is the same as the directory ID shown in the Azure Portal's Azure Active Directory > Properties page.

• 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 HCL Domino data, such as City.
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 ByName WHERE City = '"&B5&"'","Server="&B1&";AuthScheme="&B2&";User="&B3&";Password="&B4&";Provider=Domino",B6)
3. Change the filter to change the data.