Access Live SAS Data Sets Data in Excel for the Web (Excel 365/Online) through Connect Spreadsheets

Microsoft Excel for the web represents a cloud-native iteration of Microsoft Excel. When combined with Connect Spreadsheets by CData, you gain immediate access to SAS Data Sets data directly within Excel, facilitating data analysis, collaboration, calculations, and more. This article shows how to connect to SAS Data Sets in Connect Spreadsheets and access and update live SAS Data Sets data in Excel spreadsheets online.

Connect Spreadsheets is the easiest way to get all your live data into Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets - no more downloading, wrangling, and uploading files again. Just connect to your data, select the dataset you'd like to see, and import it into your spreadsheet.

Configure SAS Data Sets Connectivity for Excel

Connectivity to SAS Data Sets from Excel is made possible through Connect Spreadsheets . To work with SAS Data Sets data from Excel, we start by creating and configuring a SAS Data Sets connection.

1. Log into Connect Spreadsheets, click Sources and click Add Connection
2. Select "SAS Data Sets" from the Add Connection panel
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to SAS Data Sets.

   Set the following connection properties to connect to your SAS DataSet files:

   Connecting to Local Files

   • Set the Connection Type to "Local." Local files support SELECT, INSERT, and DELETE commands.
   • Set the URI to a folder containing SAS files, e.g. C:\PATH\TO\FOLDER\.

   Connecting to Cloud-Hosted SAS DataSet Files

   While the driver is capable of pulling data from SAS DataSet files hosted on a variety of cloud data stores, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE are not supported outside of local files in this driver.

   Set the Connection Type to the service hosting your SAS DataSet files. A unique prefix at the beginning of the URI connection property is used to identify the cloud data store and the remainder of the path is a relative path to the desired folder (one table per file) or single file (a single table). For more information, refer to the Getting Started section of the Help documentation.

   
4. Click Create & Test

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to SAS Data Sets data from Excel for the web.

Access Live SAS Data Sets Data in Excel for the web

The steps below outline connecting to Connect Spreadsheets from Excel to access live SAS Data Sets data.

1. Log into Excel, create a new sheet (or open an existing one).
2. Click Insert and click Office Add-ins. (If you have already installed the Add-In, jump to step 4.)
3. Search for Connect Spreadsheets and click "Get it now" to install the Add-in.
4. Back in Excel, open the Data ribbon select and click the CData Connect Spreadsheets "Get Data" button.
5. In the Add-In panel, click "Log in" to sign into and authenticate with your Connect Spreadsheets account
6. In the Connect Spreadsheets panel in Excel, click Import
7. Choose a Connection (e.g. SASDataSets1), Table (e.g. restaurants), and Columns to import
8. Optionally add Filters, Sorting, and a Limit
9. Click Execute to import the data

Update SAS Data Sets Data from Excel

In addition to viewing SAS Data Sets data in Excel, Connect Spreadsheets also lets you update and delete SAS Data Sets data. Begin by importing data (as described above).

1. Update any cell or cells with changes you want to push to SAS Data Sets
2. In the Connect Spreadsheets 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 SAS Data Sets

A notification will appear when the update is complete.

Live Access to SAS Data Sets Data from Spreadsheets

New, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live SAS Data Sets data from your Excel workbook. You can add more data to your workbook for calculations, aggregations, collaboration, and more.

Try Connect Spreadsheets and get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your spreadsheet apps.