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

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

Configure SuiteCRM Connectivity for Excel

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

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

2. Select "SuiteCRM" from the Add Connection panel

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

   The User and Password properties must be set to valid SuiteCRM user credentials. Additionally, specify the URL to the SuiteCRM application, for example http://suite.crm.com.

   Note that retrieving SuiteCRM metadata can be expensive. It is advised that you store the metadata locally as described in the Caching Metadata section of the data provider help documentation.

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

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

Access Live SuiteCRM Data in Excel

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Excel to access live SuiteCRM 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. SuiteCRM1), Table (e.g. Accounts), and Columns to import
8. Optionally add Filters, Sorting, and a Limit
9. Click Execute to import the data

Update SuiteCRM Data from Excel

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

1. Update any cell or cells with changes you want to push to SuiteCRM (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 SuiteCRM, and a notification will appear when the update is complete

Live Access to SuiteCRM Data from Cloud Applications

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



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