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Google Sheets Icon Google Sheets ODBC Driver

The Google Sheets ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live data from live Google Spreadsheets, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Read, write, and update online sheets through a standard ODBC interface.

Viewing Google Sheets Data in RAD Studio Data Explorer



How to view Google Sheets data in RAD Studio Data Explorer using the CData ODBC Driver for Google Sheets.

Embarcadero RAD Studio provides a development environment for Delphi and C++Builder applications. With the CData ODBC Driver for Google Sheets, you gain access to live Google Sheets data within RAD Studio, abstracting the data into tables, views, and stored procedures that can be used to both retrieve and update Google Sheets data. This article will walk through connecting to Google Sheets using the Data Explorer.

Configure a Connection to Google Sheets

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

You can connect to a spreadsheet by providing authentication to Google and then setting the Spreadsheet connection property to the name or feed link of the spreadsheet. If you want to view a list of information about the spreadsheets in your Google Drive, execute a query to the Spreadsheets view after you authenticate.

ClientLogin (username/password authentication) has been officially deprecated since April 20, 2012 and is now no longer available. Instead, use the OAuth 2.0 authentication standard. To access Google APIs on behalf on individual users, you can use the embedded credentials or you can register your own OAuth app.

OAuth also enables you to use a service account to connect on behalf of users in a Google Apps domain. To authenticate with a service account, you will need to register an application to obtain the OAuth JWT values.

See the Getting Started chapter in the help documentation to connect to Google Sheets from different types of accounts: Google accounts, Google Apps accounts, and accounts using two-step verification.

Connecting to Google Sheets Data Using Data Explorer

You can create a simple application for displaying Google Sheets data by utilizing the CData FireDAC Components for Google Sheets and a new VCL Forms Application:

  1. Open the Data Explorer in RAD Studio and expand FireDAC.
  2. Right-click the ODBC Data Source node in the Data Explorer.
  3. Click Add New Connection.
  4. Enter a name for the connection.
  5. In the FireDAC Connection Editor that appears, set the DataSource property to the name of the ODBC DSN for Google Sheets.
  6. Back in the Data Explorer, expand the tables for the connection.
  7. Create a new VCL Forms application and drag a table (for example: Orders) onto the form.

  8. Select the OrdersTable object on the form and set the Active property to true.
  9. Right-click on the object, bind visually, and link everything (*) to a new control (TStringGrid).

  10. Arrange the TStringGrid on the form and run the application to see the Orders data.