Excel Spreadsheet Automation with the QUERY Formula

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

• Connection: Either the connection name, such as SAPBusinessObjectsBIConnection1, or a connection string. The connection string consists of the required properties for connecting to SAP BusinessObjects BI data, separated by semicolons.

  To connect to your SAP Business Objects BI instance, you must set the following connection properties:

  • Url: set this to the rest API URL. After logging into the Central Management Console, choose 'Applications' from the combo box. Double-click on 'RESTful Web Service' and you'll see the access URL. By default it is, http://{Server-Name}:6405/biprws.
  • User: set this to the username of your instance.
  • Password: set this to the password of your instance.
• 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 SAP BusinessObjects BI data, such as State.
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 MyCustomReport WHERE State = '"&B4&"'","User="&B1&";Password="&B2&";Url="&B3&";Provider=SAPBusinessObjectsBI",B5)
3. Change the filter to change the data.