Connect to Excel Online Data in Airbyte ELT Pipelines

Airbyte empowers users to load your data into any data warehouse, data lake, or database. When combined with CData Connect Cloud, Airbyte users can create Extract, Load, Transform (ELT) pipelines directly from live Excel Online data. This article illustrates the process of connecting to Excel Online through Connect Cloud and constructing ELT pipelines for Excel Online data within Airbyte.

CData Connect Cloud offers a dedicated SQL Server interface for Excel Online, facilitating data querying without the need for data replication to a native database. With built-in optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect Cloud efficiently directs all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, straight to Excel Online. This harnesses server-side processing to swiftly retrieve the desired Excel Online data.

Configure Excel Online Connectivity for Airbyte

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

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

   You can connect to a workbook by providing authentication to Excel Online and then setting the following properties:

   • Workbook: Set this to the name or Id of the workbook.

     If you want to view a list of information about the available workbooks, execute a query to the Workbooks view after you authenticate.

   • UseSandbox: Set this to true if you are connecting to a workbook in a sandbox account. Otherwise, leave this blank to connect to a production account.

   You use the OAuth authentication standard to authenticate to Excel Online. See the Getting Started section in the help documentation for a guide. Getting Started also guides you through executing SQL to worksheets and ranges.

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

Add a Personal Access Token

If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
2. On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give your PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

Connect to Excel Online from Airbyte

To establish a connection from Airbyte to CData Connect Cloud, follow these steps.

1. Log in to your Airbyte account
2. On the left panel, click Sources, then Add New Source
3. Set Source Type to MSSQL Server to connect the TDS endpoint
4. Set Source Name
5. Set Host URL to tds.cdata.com
6. Set Port to 14333
7. Set Database to the name of the connection you previously configured, e.g. ExcelOnline1.
8. Set Username to your Connect Cloud username
9. Set SSL Method to Encrypted (trust server certificate), leave the Replication Method as standard, and set SSH Tunnel Method to No Tunnel
10. (Optional) Set Schema to anything you want to apply to the source
11. Set Password to your Connect Cloud PAT
12. (Optional) Enter any needed JBDC URL Params
13. Click Test and Save to create the data source.

Create ELT Pipelines for Excel Online Data

To connect Excel Online data with a new destination, click Connections and then Set Up Connection to connect to your destination. Select the source created above and your desired destination, then allow Airbyte to process. When it is done, your connection is ready for use.

Get CData Connect Cloud

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