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by pletnes 2030 days ago
What does “connect” mean in this context? Read data from SQL server into an excel spreadsheet?
1 comments
pc86 2030 days ago
Not the GP but yes I've seen a lot of folks go through the Data tab in Excel and connect to a SQL database to display data directly.
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ComodoHacker 2030 days ago
Excel can connect to PostgreSQL as well.
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vetinari 2030 days ago
Yes, it can on Windows, both via psqlODBC and Npgsql, when you find out which .net runtime version your Excel version uses.

On Mac, it is more interesting; there's only ODBC, Microsoft doesn't support the same psqlODBC you can use in Windows and you have to purchase one of the supported commercial ODBC drivers.

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xupybd 2030 days ago
Yes but not with the same ease :)
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xupybd 2030 days ago
Exactly that. It's a nightmare to maintain but business types seem to demand it.
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petepete 2029 days ago
I used to work at big hospital that had a home-grown 'reporting system' built with Excel, data connections to an SQL Server database, and a series of pivot tables. Every morning from 8-9am the whole network would slow as people opened their spreadsheet and it basically did a `select * from a_rather_large_view` - tens of gigabytes flying around (this was in the mid 2000s.)

There was resistance after a data warehouse (BO) was introduced because pivot tables were so flexible and well-understood.

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