Excel Spreadsheet Automation with the QUERY Formula

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

• Connection: Either the connection name, such as APIConnection1, or a connection string. The connection string consists of the required properties for connecting to Aha data, separated by semicolons.

  Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Aha! Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\aha.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Aha! (see below).

  Aha! API Profile Settings

  The Aha! API uses OAuth-based authentication.

  You will first need to register an OAuth app with Aha!. This can be done from your Aha! account under 'Settings' > 'Personal' > 'Developer' > 'OAuth Applications'. Additionally, you will need to set the Domain, found in the domain name of your Aha account. For example if your Aha account is acmeinc.aha.io, then the Domain should be 'acmeinc'.

  After setting the following in the connection string, you are ready to connect:

  • AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
  • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage the process to obtain the OAuthAccessToken.
  • OAuthClientId: Set this to the client_id that is specified in you app settings.
  • OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client_secret that is specified in you app settings.
  • CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI you specified in your app settings.
  • Domain: Set this in the ProfileSettings to your Aha domain.
• 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 Aha data, such as AssignedToUserId.
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 Ideas WHERE AssignedToUserId = '"&B8&"'","Profile="&B1&";ProfileSettings="&B2&";Authscheme="&B3&";OAuthClientId="&B4&";OAuthClientSecret="&B5&";CallbackUrl="&B6&";Provider=API",B9)
3. Change the filter to change the data.