Access Live Redshift 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 Connect Spreadsheets by CData, you gain immediate access to Redshift data directly within Excel, facilitating data analysis, collaboration, calculations, and more. This article shows how to connect to Redshift in Connect Spreadsheets and access and update live Redshift data in Excel spreadsheets.

Connect Spreadsheets is the easiest way to get all your live data into Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets - no more downloading, wrangling, and uploading files again. Just connect to your data, select the dataset you'd like to see, and import it into your spreadsheet.

Configure Redshift Connectivity for Excel

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

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

   To connect to Redshift, set the following:

   • Server: Set this to the host name or IP address of the cluster hosting the Database you want to connect to.
   • Port: Set this to the port of the cluster.
   • Database: Set this to the name of the database. Or, leave this blank to use the default database of the authenticated user.
   • User: Set this to the username you want to use to authenticate to the Server.
   • Password: Set this to the password you want to use to authenticate to the Server.

   You can obtain the Server and Port values in the AWS Management Console:

   1. Open the Amazon Redshift console (http://console.aws.amazon.com/redshift).
   2. On the Clusters page, click the name of the cluster.
   3. On the Configuration tab for the cluster, copy the cluster URL from the connection strings displayed.
4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Redshift Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

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

Access Live Redshift Data in Excel

The steps below outline connecting to Connect Spreadsheets from Excel to access live Redshift 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 Connect Spreadsheets and install the Add-in.
4. Click Data and open the CData Connect Spreadsheets Add-In.
5. In the Add-In panel, click "Log in" to authenticate with your Connect Spreadsheets account
6. In the Connect Spreadsheets panel in Excel, click Import
7. Choose a Connection (e.g. Redshift1), Table (e.g. Orders), and Columns to import
8. Optionally add Filters, Sorting, and a Limit
9. Click Execute to import the data and opt to overwrite the existing sheet or create a new one.

Update Redshift Data from Excel

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

1. Update any cell or cells with changes you want to push to Redshift (your changes will be in red)
2. In the Connect Spreadsheets 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 Redshift

A notification will appear when the update is complete

Live Access to Redshift Data from Spreadsheet Apps

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

Try Connect Spreadsheets and get real-time data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from Microsoft Excel.