How to update Twitter from Excel

The CData Excel Add-In for Twitter enables you to edit and save Twitter data directly from Excel. This article explains how to transfer data from Excel to Twitter. This technique is useful if you want to work on Twitter data in Excel and update changes, or if you have a whole spreadsheet you want to import into Twitter. In this example, you will use the Tweets table; however, the same process will work for any table that can be retrieved by the CData Excel Add-In.

Establish a Connection

If you have not already done so, create a new Twitter connection by clicking From Twitter on the ribbon.

All tables require authentication. You can connect using your User and Password or OAuth. To authenticate using OAuth, you can use the embedded OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL or you can register an app to obtain your own.

If you intend to communicate with Twitter only as the currently authenticated user, then you can obtain the OAuthAccessToken and OAuthAccessTokenSecret directly by registering an app.

See the Getting Started chapter in the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

Retrieve Data from Twitter

To insert data into Twitter, you will first need to retrieve data from the Twitter table you want to add to. This links the Excel spreadsheet to the Twitter table selected: After you retrieve data, any changes you make to the data are highlighted in red.

1. Click the From Twitter button on the CData ribbon. The Data Selection wizard is displayed.
2. In the Table or View menu, select the Tweets table.
3. In the Maximum Rows menu, select the number of rows you want to retrieve. If you want to insert rows, you need to retrieve only one row. The Query box will then display the SQL query that corresponds to your request.
4. In the Sheet Name box, enter the name for the sheet that will be populated. By default the add-in will create a new sheet with the name of the table.

Insert Rows to Twitter

After retrieving data, you can add data from an existing spreadsheet in Excel.

1. In a cell after the last row, enter a formula referencing the corresponding cell from the other spreadsheet; for example, =MyTweetsSheetInExcel!A1.
2. After using a formula to reference the cells you want to add to Twitter, select the cells that you are inserting data into and drag the formula down as far as needed. The referenced values you want to add will be displayed on the Tweets sheet.
3. Highlight the rows you want to insert and click the Update Rows button.

As each row is inserted, the Id value will appear in the Id column and the row's text will change to black, indicating that the record has been inserted.