Use the CData ODBC Driver for Google Sheets in SAS JMP

You can use the CData ODBC Driver for Google Sheets to integrate live data into your statistical analysis with SAS JMP. The driver proxies your queries directly to the Google Sheets API, ensuring that your analysis reflects any changes to the data. The CData ODBC Driver supports the standard SQL used by JMP in the background as you design reports.

The Google Sheets API supports bidirectional access. This article shows how to access Google Sheets data into a report and create data visualization. It also shows how to use SQL to query and manipulate Google Sheets data from the JMP Query Builder.

Access Google Sheets Data as an ODBC Data Source

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.

You can connect to a spreadsheet by providing authentication to Google and then setting the Spreadsheet connection property to the name or feed link of the spreadsheet. If you want to view a list of information about the spreadsheets in your Google Drive, execute a query to the Spreadsheets view after you authenticate.

ClientLogin (username/password authentication) has been officially deprecated since April 20, 2012 and is now no longer available. Instead, use the OAuth 2.0 authentication standard. To access Google APIs on behalf on individual users, you can use the embedded credentials or you can register your own OAuth app.

OAuth also enables you to use a service account to connect on behalf of users in a Google Apps domain. To authenticate with a service account, you will need to register an application to obtain the OAuth JWT values.

See the Getting Started chapter in the help documentation to connect to Google Sheets from different types of accounts: Google accounts, Google Apps accounts, and accounts using two-step verification.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

Import Google Sheets Data with the Query Builder

After you have created the Google Sheets DSN, you can use SQL to invoke the capabilities of the Google Sheets API. Follow the steps below to execute some supported queries in the Query Builder:

1. In SAS JMP, click File -> Database -> Query Builder. The Select Database Connection dialog is displayed.
2. Click New Connection.
3. On the Machine Data Source tab, select the DSN. In the next step, the Select Tables for Query dialog is displayed.
4. In the Available Tables section, select a table and click Primary.
5. As you drag Available Columns to the Included Columns tab, the underlying SQL query is updated.
6. Click Run Query to display the data.
7. To refresh the results with the current data, right-click Update from Database and click Run Script.

Manipulate Google Sheets Data

You can execute data manipulation queries from JSL scripts such as the one below. To execute a script, click New Script in the toolbar. To connect, specify the DSN. You can then use the standard SQL syntax:

Visualize Google Sheets Data

After importing, you can use the Graph Builder to create graphs visually. To open the Graph Builder, click the Graph Builder button in the toolbar.

1. Drag a dimension column onto the x axis. For example, Shipcountry.
2. Drag a measure column onto the y axis. For example, OrderPrice.
3. Select a chart type. For example, a bar chart.