Access Live Act-On Data in Excel (Desktop)

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 Cloud, you gain immediate access to Act-On data directly within Excel, facilitating data analysis, collaboration, calculations, and more.This article shows how to connect to Act-On in your Connect Cloud instance and access and update live Act-On data in Excel spreadsheets.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Act-On, allowing you to easily access live Act-On data in Excel for the web. Simply use the Connect Cloud Add-In to query live data (or write your own). Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Cloud pushes all supported query operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Act-On, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Act-On data.

Configure Act-On Connectivity for Excel

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

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "Act-On" from the Add Connection panel
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Act-On.

   ActOn uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, you will need to create an app to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL connection properties.

   See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for more information.

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

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Act-On data from Excel.

Access Live Act-On Data in Excel

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Cloud from Excel to access live Act-On 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 Cloud Add-In and install the Add-in.
4. Click Data and open the CData Connect Cloud Add-In.
5. In the Add-In panel, click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect Cloud instance
6. In the CData Connect Cloud panel in Excel, click Import
7. Choose a Connection (e.g. ActOn1), Table (e.g. Images), and Columns to import
8. Optionally add Filters, Sorting, and a Limit
9. Click Execute to import the data

Update Act-On Data from Excel

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

1. Update any cell or cells with changes you want to push to Act-On (your changes will be in red)
2. In the CData Connect Cloud 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 Act-On

A notification will appear when the update is complete

Live Access to Act-On Data from Cloud Applications

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

Try CData Connect Cloud and get real-time data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.