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

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

Configure FTP Connectivity for Excel

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

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

2. Select "FTP" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to FTP.

   To connect to FTP or SFTP servers, specify at least RemoteHost and FileProtocol. Specify the port with RemotePort.

   Set User and Password to perform Basic authentication. Set SSHAuthMode to use SSH authentication. See the Getting Started section of the data provider help documentation for more information on authenticating via SSH.

   Set SSLMode and SSLServerCert to secure connections with SSL.

   The data provider lists the tables based on the available folders in your FTP server. Set the following connection properties to control the relational view of the file system:

   • RemotePath: Set this to the current working directory.
   • TableDepth: Set this to control the depth of folders to list as views.
   • FileRetrievalDepth: Set this to retrieve and list files recursively from the root table.

   Stored Procedures are available to download files, upload files, and send protocol commands. See the Data Model chapter of the FTP data provider documentation for more information.

   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add FTP Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

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

Access Live FTP Data in Excel

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Excel to access live FTP 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. FTP1), Table (e.g. MyDirectory), and Columns to import
8. Optionally add Filters, Sorting, and a Limit
9. Click Execute to import the data

Update FTP Data from Excel

In addition to viewing FTP data in Excel, CData Connect AI also lets you update and delete FTP data. Begin by importing data (as described above).

1. Update any cell or cells with changes you want to push to FTP (your changes will be in red)
2. In the CData Connect AI Add-In panel, select Update
3. Optionally highlight the cell(s) you wish to update and select an update option ("Update All" or "Update Selected")
4. Click Execute to push the updates to FTP, and a notification will appear when the update is complete

Live Access to FTP Data from Cloud Applications

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