I want to build an authentication system based on an Excel spreadsheet database. Therefore I would like to know if it's possible to use ADO.NET in the IDE integrated in Excel. (I don't want to use visual basic studio)
If you add a reference to the ActiveX Data Objects, you can use the ADODB suite of objects - Connection, Command, ResultSet etc.
I presume what you'd do is just show the "Login" sheet on opening the file and then, on successful authentication, show other sheets.
As it's Excel though, I'm not sure how easy it would be to bypass for somebody with a reasonable amount of knowledge.
Best of luck with it.
Related
My skill level: basic user of VBA, know next to nothing about SQL (though I’ve recently learned how to execute code, etc).
I’ve created a user interface in an Excel worksheet to allow user input of report variables (dates, etc). These pass into a second Excel worksheet that, through the use of various Excel statements, creates the necessary SQL code. My macro then copies this worksheet and opens Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Rx via a shell command. Currently, I then manually click “connect” on the resultant Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 connect-to-server window (which does not need a password, just requires me to click “connect”), I create a new query, I paste the code in and then execute in SQL. So it is these latter steps (opening SQL, click “connect”, copy/paste code, execute) that I’m trying to automate via VBA.
To offer more context, once the SQL code has run, I then have a second macro that uses the Excel Data Connection wizard to bring the resultant SQL data back into my worksheet. This is working well.
I’ve researched this for several days on various boards. None seem to observe my approach of creating the code in Excel (probably because it is an inelegant approach). Or the post responses are beyond my skill level to understand. But I do fear that I’m asking a question that has been answered before (apologies in advance).
Thanks for whatever advice/time can be offered.
I’m using:
Excel/Office 2010
Microsoft SQL Server2008 R2 (is this the same as Microsoft SQL Server Management Studios? My SQL application shows both names)
Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects 6.1 Library (this is NOT currently checked off. One post I saw referenced the need for this. I have multiple prior AciveX Library versions available as well.)
What you're doing is very ingenious, but it's probably not necessary. Excel has a number of features for importing external data.
I would look at the Data tab in Excel and the From Other Sources section of the ribbon. You have at least three options: the From SQL Server, From Data Connection Wizard, and From Microsoft Query options.
All of these will set up a connection to a database server and execute SQL against it. They return data to your spreadsheet in different ways.
Where VBA will come into play again is in automating the generation and parameterization of the queries these will execute.
But I would set up something that works, with constants for your parameter values, first, so you get an idea of the possibilities, and then read and research dynamically setting your SQL with VBA.
You might also investigate PowerPivot, by the way.
I am trying to make an application in VB6.0 using MS Excel as database. I have some textboxes on my VB Form to take input from user. I want to store those values in an Excel file. There will be another form where I want to retrieve the values from Excel and display it in textbox/labels.
Can I use SQL queries for inserting/retrieving the values while using Excel as database?
I just need a sample code for understanding the process. Rest I will try to manage.
Thanks in advance.
It's a poor idea.
While you can treat an Excel workbook as a data source via the Jet IISAM or ODBC Desktop Driver this is really meant for simple importing and exporting and has numerous limitations.
Save yourself some grief and just use Jet 4.0 to create and make use of MDB files. No MS Access is required, Jet 4.0 comes preinstalled and has for a rather long time now.
I have a lightswitch project in visual studio 2013, using vb.net. I would like the user to be able to click a button and have lightswitch find an excel file, and upload that file to a sql table according to a pre-determined column mapping.
My preference was to use the Office Integration extension for visual studio, which I got working with VS 2013 by downloading it from this link: http://www.ge.tt/71iuRQv/v/0
However, the documentation and examples for office integration seem to be very heavy on getting an excel spreadsheet into a display in the lightswitch web client, rather than into the sql data table, which is where I need it. Here are the examples I've been following:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bethmassi/archive/2012/07/18/new-and-improved-office-integration-pack-extension-for-lightswitch.aspx
Alternatively, I have an existing stored procedure, and I can request that the server call this stored proc by sending a web API extension from the client to the server. I have this working already for other stored procs, according to examples from Beth Masi and Paul van Bladel. (Stackoverflow won't let me post the links...)
The undesirable part of this approach is that the stored proc is old, and messy.
I've searched and searched, but have yet to find anyone approach this problem for VS 2013 with lightswitch. Any useful advice?
I've used the method detailed by Matt Sampson to store word files and it works very well. Since it just stores the raw binary it should handle Excel files just as well.
If you're creating the table in LightSwitch, use the Binary Type. If you use SQL create scripts use varbinary(MAX).
You need to create a custom Silverlight dialog box to gain access to the OpenFileDialog object. Then open the file in as a FileStream.
Finally, you need to add a handler for the closed method of the control and then show the control to the user. Most likely done in a button. This needs to be done on the main dispatcher.
The code examples are in C# but I just used one of the many available translators out on the web and copy/pasted the VB.NET code.
Another option might be to consider shelling out to the DTSEXEC run-time to execute an SSIS package to perform the upload - especially if the target Excel spreadsheets have predefined layouts and content data types.
Even simpler, you might be able to use the SQL Server BULK INSERT command to get the job done - although that would require a SQL Client connection to your database.
HTH
I want to create a program that could generate reports from an ms access database and place it on ms word, how can I do that. Please help, I dont have any idea on how to do this.
If you're doing this from vb.net, it seems to me that it would be simpler to automate Word, which has no difficulty utilizing Jet/ACE data as data source. I don't see any reason to involve the Access application in this, unless you have complex logic that needs to be executed within Access to get correct results in Word. For instance, Word doesn't do parent/child data display very well, but Access reports do that very easily.
Another question is the final disposition of the results. It may be that you don't need Word at all, e.g., if you're using Word for nothing more than generating PDFs. In that case, it might make more sense to create Access reports and output those to PDF (there's an add-in available for for A2007, and in previous versions, you can use the VB automatable PDFCreator, which is free).
In short, my conclusions would be:
if you're just merging data in Word from a Jet/ACE data store, then automate Word.
if you need to execute complex logic, it's probably better to automate Access and either output Access reports directly, or automate Word from Access.
In neither case, I believe, would you be automating both Word and Access directly from your VB.NET application.
You should connect to the Access Database using a Typed Dataset.
Right-click the project, click Add New Item, select Typed Dataset, and follow the wizard.
To control Word, add a reference to Microsoft.Office.Word and use the Application class.
You can build reports in MS Access that have the Export to Word functionality built into them.
You can invoke the report from your code and then call the export functionality and give it parameters so that it will export to a .doc file that you name. You can then invoke MS Word and open the .doc file up for display.
I know it is possible to get data from a SQL database into an excel sheet, but i'm looking for a way to make it possible to edit the data in excel, and after editing, writing it back to the SQL database.
It appears this is not a function in excel, and google didn't come up with much usefull.
If you want to have the Excel file do all of the work (retrieve from DB; manipulate; update DB) then you could look at ActiveX Data Objects (ADO). You can get an overview at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms680928(VS.85).aspx
You want the Import/Export wizard in SQL Management Studio. Depending on which version of SQL Server you are using, open SSMS (connect to the SQL instance you desire), right click on the database you want to import into and select Tasks.. "Import Data".
In the wizard, click Next (past the intro screen) and from the Data Source drop list select "Microsoft Excel". You specify the path and file name of the Excel spreadsheet, whether you have column headings or not.. then press Next. Just follow the wizard through, it'll set up the destination (can be SQL Server or another destination) etc.
There is help available for this process in SQL Server Books Online and more (a walkthrough) from MSDN.
If you need something deployable/more robust (or less wizard driven) then you'd need to take a look at SQL Server Integration Services (for a more "Enterprise" and security conscious approach). It's probably overkill for what you want to accomplish though.
There is a new Excel plug-in named "MySQL for Excel" : http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/windows/
I just had a need to do this, and this thread has been quiet for a long time, so I thought it might be useful to supply a recent data point.
In my application roving salespeople use a copy of an Excel workbook that tracks the progress of a prospect through a loan application. The current stage of the application needs to be automatically saved back to a remote SQL database so that we can run reporting on it.
Rejected methods for updating the database from Excel:
SSIS and OpenRowSet are both methods for allowing SQL Server to pull the data from Excel, and don't work very well when the Excel workbook is sitting in an undefined location on a user's computer, and certainly not when the workbook is currently open in Excel.
ADO is now, if not actually deprecated, nevertheless looking very long in the tooth. Also, I wanted the solution to be robust in the face of the user possibly not being connected to the internet.
I also considered running a web API on the destination server. Macros in the Excel workbook connect to the web API to transfer data. However, it can sometimes be painful to allow a web API to talk to the outside world. Also, the code to make it robust in the face of temporary loss of internet connection is painful.
The adopted solution:
The solution I plan to adopt is low-tech: email. Excel emails the data to an address hosted on an Exchange server. Everyone in the company has Outlook installed, so the emails are sent by programmatically adding them to the Outlook Outbox. Outlook nicely handles the case when the user is offline. At the server end, a custom C# executable, fired up at regular intervals by the Task Scheduler, polls the inbox and processes the emails.
You could use try these add-ins :
www.QueryCell.com (I created this one)
www.SQLDrill.com
www.Excel-DB.net
You can use the OPENROWSET function to manipulate Excel data from a T-SQL script. Example usage would be:
UPDATE OPENROWSET('Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0',
'Excel 8.0;DATABASE=c:\MySpreadsheet.xls',
'Select * from MyTable')
SET Field1='Value1' WHERE Field2 = 'Value2'