Access Live SharePoint 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 SharePoint data directly within Excel, facilitating data analysis, collaboration, calculations, and more. This article shows how to connect to SharePoint in Connect Spreadsheets and access and update live SharePoint 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.

Getting Started

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Configure SharePoint Connectivity for Excel

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

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

   Set the URL property to the base SharePoint site or to a sub-site. This allows you to query any lists and other SharePoint entities defined for the site or sub-site.

   The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid SharePoint user credentials when using SharePoint On-Premise.

   If you are connecting to SharePoint Online, set the SharePointEdition to SHAREPOINTONLINE along with the User and Password connection string properties. For more details on connecting to SharePoint Online, see the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation

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

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

Access Live SharePoint Data in Excel

The steps below outline connecting to Connect Spreadsheets from Excel to access live SharePoint 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. SharePoint1), Table (e.g. MyCustomList), 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 SharePoint Data from Excel

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

1. Update any cell or cells with changes you want to push to SharePoint (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 SharePoint

A notification will appear when the update is complete

Live Access to SharePoint Data from Spreadsheet Apps

New, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live SharePoint 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.