Google Spreadsheet: SQL query for automatic update - sql

Suppose I have one master sheet with several columns and rows which keeps updating whenever. Now I need to use some of the data from the master sheet as reference, to create analytic report in another sheet. How can I use a SQL query to reference the appropriate data from the original sheet? And by doing so, what happens when the original sheet is updated with more records? Will they be automatically included as well in the second sheet?
I'm just a beginner, but if anyone has any clue in this matter, or if there's any alternative method that could be implemented, please let me know! I'd be very grateful for any help!

I think you're looking for Google Query Language.
The QUERY function is a built-in function that allows you to perform a query over an array of values using the Google Visualization API Query Language.
Query String - A query string for applying data operations. The query operates on column IDs directly from the input range and uses a subset of the SQL language. For example, "select E," "select A , B," "sum(B),C group by C," "select D where D < 'Nick' ."
Documentation

Related

Choose AS400 query records directly from Excel

I've been searching the internet for hours trying to figure out if the following is even possible:
To choose the AS400 query records directly from Excel.
I haven't found any solution or description of how this could be achieved, which makes me guess that it's simply not possible. However, I haven't seen anyone confirm that it is impossible.
So my question is: Is this possible? And if it is, could you point me in the right direction in order for me to start learning how to do it?
I know its possible to run a query from Excel, and then adding parameters via SQL statements, but in my case, this presents several problems that could be avoided by choosing the records before the query is executed.
Example:
I have a query with a column (lets call it ColVal) that can hold the values 1 and/or 2. In the AS400 program under the menu "Work with queries" and then "Choose records" I can specify which records the query should contain when it has run based on the value in ColVal. This means i can get three different situations (A, B and C) when i run the query:
A) The query only contains records where the value in ColVal is 1
B) The query only contains records where the value in ColVal is 2
C) The query contains records where the value in ColVal is either 1 or 2
The goal is to be able to choose which situation I want from Excel in order to circumvent opening and using the AS400 program.
However, using situation C and then editing the query in Excel with an SQL statement to mimic situation A or B is not an option, as this means the query still contains undesired records.
This whole thing boils down to the following: Is it even possible to run the query from Excel essentially changing the data it contains and not just outputting it to excel? If this is possible, is it then possible to pass a parameter to the AS400 system and use it to create situation A, B or C?
I hope this example makes sense.
Edit - New example
Say i have different customers A and B. I can open the AS400 program and run a query in which i have specified that I only want data on customer A. I can then open Excel and use filters (as Hambone described) on the query to determine which records I want to output. However, if I want to work with data from customer B, I have to open the AS400 again and run the query with different parameters. I would like to be able to "change" my dataset from customer A to B from Excel, without having to include both in my recordset and then filter out one of them.
I imagined this is doable if you could pass a parameter to the AS400. The AS400 then runs the query using this parameter as the criteria for which records should be stored in the query. This means that if the parameter is Customer B, then there is no way to acces data from customer A, without running the query through AS400 again.
Any ideas are greatly appreciated :)
Follow up to my comment, here is a quick primer on how to run an ODBC query directly in MS Excel using Microsoft Query. This is very different than Power Query, which you referenced, in that MS Query is standard with Excel -- it's not a plug-in. This is relevant because it means everyone has it. If you are deploying a solution to others, that's an important consideration.
To start an MS Query in Excel, go to the data tab, select "From Other Sources" -> "Microsoft Query."
A list of your ODBC connections will come up. Pick the one that you want and select "OK."
It may or may not ask you for a login (depending on which ODBC connection you use and how its configured).
The next part is important. MS Query is going to try to have you use its builder to create the query. If you have the SQL, skip this part. It's horrible. Click "Cancel" on the query wizard, and then click the "SQL" button to enter your own SQL. If you can, make sure the result set is small (like use where 1 = 2 in the query).
When MS Query returns results, click the button next to the SQL Button to have it return the results to the spreadsheet. It looks like a little door.
From here, any time you want to refresh the query, you can simply right-click the data table in Excel and select "refresh." Alternatively you can go to the data tab on the ribbon and select "Refresh."
By the way if you have linked pivot tables and charts, the "Refresh All" option will refresh those as well, in the correct order.
To edit your query at any time, right-click on the table in Excel, go to Table-External Data Properties:
Then Click on the Connection Properties icon (highlighted below)
Click on the second tab (Definition) and edit the SQL Directly.
Parameters can be declared simply by inserting a bare "?" in place of your literal.
In other words, if your query looks like this:
select *
from users
where user_id = 'hambone'
Just change it to:
select *
from users
where user_id = ?
Excel will prompt you for a user id before it runs the query. From here, you also have the option of putting the parameter value in a cell within the spreadsheet and having the query read it from there. You'll see these when you right-click the table and go to the "Parameters" menu option.
Let me know if this helps or is unclear.
-- EDIT 7/23/2018 --
To follow up on your latest edit, it is possible to handle the scenario you describe, where you want to be able to filter on a value, or if none is given, then not have a filter. You see this a lot when you present multiple filter options to the user and you want a blank to mean "no filter," which is obviously counter to the way SQL works.
However, you can hack SQL to still make it work:
select * from activities
where
(activity = ? or ? is null) and
(energy = ? or ? is null)
In this example you have to declare four parameters instead of two, two for each.
You might also have to play with datatypes, depending on the RDBMS (for example for numerics you might have to say ? = 0 instead of ? is null or even ? = '' for text).
Here is a working example where a single filter was applied on the query above and you can clearly see the second one did not have an impact.
Yes it's possible. You need to use an ODBC driver to connect to the AS400 and retrieve the data. The driver and documentation are Here

SQL From Excel VBA: Create a temporary table in VBA (for reuse) from a SQL query

I have been going nuts looking for a straightforward way to do this, but most answers I have come across go off on a tangent instead of directly addressing the question.
Here is a simplified SQL snippet I am trying to run through VBA
SELECT * INTO ##Customers FROM Addresses
SELECT * FROM ##Customers a LEFT JOIN PostageRate b ON a.ZipCode=b.ZipCode
And then I need to put all this data into an Excel sheet.
So far I am able to execute:
SELECT * FROM Addresses
This is the functional equivalent of the first query without the temporary table. I land up with a RecordSet which I then put into a sheet using CopyFromRecordSet, but I don't know how to turn this RecordSet into a table so I can query it for the second query where I do the LEFT JOIN and then put the resulting RecordSet on the sheet.
Naturally the queries I am trying to run are more complex than this one, but this illustrates what I am trying to achieve.
Apologies if I have missed a post that does answer this, but I have yet to come across it.
Thanks!
EDIT: I have looked into putting the data from the first query onto a sheet and treating the sheet as a table for the second query. The problem is as follows:
The sheet is local and the second table is on a database. According to this question, the database would need to have access to the Excel sheet. It does not. Any more insights about how to achieve temporary tables through VBA would be greatly appreciated. Thanks all!
SELECT * FROM
(SELECT * from [Addresses]) AS Customer
LEFT JOIN PostageRate
ON (customer.zipcode = PostageRate.zipcode)

Dynamic Parameter in Power Pivot Query

We are using Excel 2013 and Power Pivot to build modules that consist of several Pivot tables that are all pulling data from the same Power Pivot table, which queries our T-SQL data warehouse.
In an effort to simplify and fully automate this module, we wanted to create a text field that would allow a user to enter a value (a client ID# for example), and then have that value be used as a parameter in the Power Pivot query.
Is it possible to pass a Parameter in the Power Pivot query, which is housed in a text field outside of the query?
You can also pass a slicer or combobox selection to a cell. Define a name for that cell. Put that cell (and others if you have multiple text variables to use) in a table. For convenience, I usually name this table "Parameters". You can then 'read in' the parameters to your query and drop them in your query statements.
The code at the top of your query to read these parameters in might look like...
let
Parameter_Table = Excel.CurrentWorkbook(){[Name="Parameter"]}[Content],
XXX_Value = Parameter_Table{1}[Value],
YYY_Value = Parameter_Table{2}[Value],
ZZZ_Value = Parameter_Table{3}[Value],
Followed by your query wherein instead of searching for, say a manually typed in customer called "BigDataCo", you would replace "BigDataCo" with XXX_Value.
Refreshing the link each time a different customer is selected will indeed be a very slow approach, but this has worked for me.
Rather than pass a parameter to the data source SQL query, why not utilize a pivot table filter or slicer to do allow the users to dynamically filter the data? This is much faster than refreshing the data from the source.
If for some reason you need to pass this directly to the source query, you'll have to do some VBA work.

Access - Create Select Statement via Excel Template

to export data from an Access 2010 Database I would like to use an Excel template as seen below.
In the first row I can define columns that are in the database. In the second line I can define exactly 1 filter which will be used in the "where" statement.
When pressing a button in Access, a query that is based on the defined columns and filters should be executed and the result will be exported to the Excel.
I am honest, I am not that skilled in VBA. What would be the best point to start from.
Your question is way too broad and as such it should not even be here, but let me give you some points to look at.
First you'll need to get your data from the Excel file. If you are not skilled with VBA, then the easiest way would be opening it through VBA using an Excel.Application object and Workbooks.Open method, and get your values from your Range.
Create an SQL Select statement from your values.
Do not use just a SELECT query, make it a SELECT INTO query (a "make table query" as Access likes to call it). That way your results will be inserted into a (new) table, making it easier to output.
Export your new table to Excel. There are several ways to do this, search for DoCmd.OutputTo or DoCmd.TransferSpreadsheet.

How to get info from a listbox populated by an SQL query?

The title says the vague question, but, I will be more specific. I'm more of a hardware oriented person with some experience in VB, Java, and C++. I've been asked to modify a form in Access which uses SQL queries to take information from a database. The edit I am trying to make is to a form that has selections to narrow down the data it queries from to appear in a listbox in the center of the form (so, like radio buttons to specify a certain height or weight of an object in the database). The selections, as they are selected, concatenate additional specifications to an string that is then run as an SQL query. What I am trying to accomplish is to take a column of the narrowed-down data and find the maximum number in the column and the average of the numbers in the column. It seems really simple and know how to do that with regular lists and arrays, but I'm at a loss with my limited knowledge. I've considered making another SQL string, but in another part of the form, it was done with two strings (so, one to put the data in the listbox from the database and one to pull the specific column of the narrowed down data). That being said, it doesn't seem logical to me to pull the same sets of data each time, so I'm wondering if I can just pull the info from the already pulled info. At the bottom of the code set is this:
ItemList.RowSource = vSQLStock
ItemList = Null
ItemList.Requery
QuoteList.RowSource = vSQLNonStock
QuoteList = Null
QuoteList.Requery
Both vSQLStock and vSQLNonStock have their own sets of SQL strings that are run by this function, or as far as I can tell (I'm still studying up on SQL) put the narrowed down items in the QuoteList listbox. What I'm asking is if there is a way with any function that can be used to go through this information? Specifically, take a column and do some calculations on the data. I don't want to run another SQL query and bog down the server, but rather manipulate the data on the user's computer.
An example of what happens is the user selects whether the item is stock/nonstock, searches by the name/code/ID, and then puts all the matches on the listbox on the form. The listbox shows lines of data with columns like Name, Cost, Size, Weight, etc. of which I am looking to do calculations on the Cost column. Hopefully this is enough information; I appreciate any advice.
It looks from your question like you are attempting to get the Maximum and the Average from a SQL query.
the syntax:
SELECT MAX(myColumn) as MyMax, AVG(myColumn) as MyAverage
FROM myTable
WHERE . . .
Will return the Maximum and Average Values within SQL Server or within MS Access
If you're really bound and determined to do this locally with the data you've already retrieved from the server, then you probably need to look into working with adodb.recordsets. You can kind of treat it like an array. Kind of.
I really recommend querying the server for the data you need though. It's a world simpler.
dim rs as ADODB.Recordset
Set rs = QuoteList.Recordset
rs.MoveFirst
Do Until rs.EOF
' loop through recordset doing something
rs.MoveNext
Loop