Connecting Excel to a Remote Mysql Server

Connecting Excel to a remote MySQL server

2013-07-15

Emin Gabrielyan

1. Table of contents

2. Introduction

This document describes the connection of an Excel file with a remote MySQL server. The document is organized in the inverse order. I start first by the demonstration of the result then I go backward by showing how the connection is configured and installed.

3. Result

Here is an Excel file where an area starting from the cell $J$4 is connected to a remote MySQL server.

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Here is a session of a mysql connection to the server, where I change a value in the table:

$ mysql -h'37.187.52.44' -u'emin' -p Enter password:

mysql> use test

Database changed

mysql> select * from t; +------+------+ | x | y | +------+------+ | 10 | 201 | | 11 | 21 | +------+------+ 2 rows in set (0.03 sec)

mysql> update t set y=202 where x=10; Query OK, 1 row affected (0.04 sec) Rows matched: 1 Changed: 1 Warnings: 0

mysql>

After a minute the Excel file updates its values:

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 4. Connection properties

In the data / connections menu of the Excel application you have the connection corresponding to the link to the table on the remote server

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 In the properties pane you have to set the maximal refresh frequency and check the box for refreshing the file when opening the file.

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 5. Linking an area in the Excel with the remote MySQL table

You have to select a cell in your Excel sheet, for Example C5

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Then in Data / Existing Connections pane, you have to choose the connection which was already defined (see the following sections for the definition of the connection).

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 For our case the name of the connection is “test t”

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Click on Open and you will have the following confirmation box

Click on OK, and your Excel file will be updated with the values of the table taken from the remote server:

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 6. Establishing a connection

Open the Data / Connections tab which shall look as follows. You normally will have no connection yet listed in the window.

Click on Add and you will have the following window

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Browse for more connections by clicking on [Browse for More…]. You will have another window that looks as follows:

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Here you must click on New Source… and you will have this:

Select ODBC DSN

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Click on Next and you will see in the list the ODBC driver that you have installed for the MySQL connection. For installation of the ODBC driver refer to the following section. As described in the introduction this document is organized in the reverse chronological order.

Click on Next, and you will see the table which is behind the Database Connection

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Leave the data as suggested in the next window

Click on Finish

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 I got the above message, as the connection was already created. I am clicking on Yes to replace the file.

Now on the list of connections I have a new one, called “test t2”. It corresponds to the link to the exactly the same remote table.

Go into its properties

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 And change the refresh frequency and force the refresh when opening the file.

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Close the connection pane

Now use the Data / existing connection button to use the new link “test t2”

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 And to sync the remote table values with the area of your Excel sheet starting from the O4 corner

Click on OK, and you will have the values of the remote mysql server in your Excel sheet

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 You can now connect to the mysql server with the command line prompt, and change a value in the table.

mysql>

The Excel file will update its values soon

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Note that an early linked table is not updated yet. The reason is that the auto-refresh time of its connection (to the same table) is different.

7. Configuring the ODBC Type ODBC in the Windows’ Start menu and select the Data Sources (ODBC) application

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 In the User DSN pane add a new name. The ODBC entries added in the User DSN are limited by the current Windows User only (System DSN covers all users on the computer, and the File DSN creates a file that can be ported to another computer). In the example shown below you see already mysql103. This is the one created by me before. We will now create a new one.

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Click on Add button. You will see the MySQL ODBC 5.2 drivers. These drivers were installed previously. Refer to the next section for the instructions on how-to install the MySQL ODBC driver.

Let us use the Unicode version

Click on Finish and you will have the following form to fulfill

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 We give a new connection name “mysql104” now.

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 As soon as you fulfill the correct information, including the password, the drop-down menu of databases allows you to select the database on the remote server. It means that the entered connection parameters are valid.

In our example we select the database “test”

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Click also on the Test button to check the connection.

Now a new User DSN is created

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 In an Excel file, we can see the new DSN. The detailed sequence of screenshots was already shown previously. For a reminder, to reach the following window you have to follow in the Excel file the following path [Data] / [Connections] / [Add…] / [Browse for More…] / [New Source…] / [ODBC DSN] / [Next].

Select now the new data source “mysql104”

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Click on next

Give a different ODC file name

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 And finish. The first line corresponds to the new connection.

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 We remove all other connections to not create a mess

And we make sure that this is the new connection

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 The properties need an update of the refresh time

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 The pane looks as follows after the update

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Now we can use the existing connections to link an area with the remote table

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Confirming the location in the Excel sheet where to we wish to link the remote table.

And here is the result

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 And after a little update on the server side:

mysql>

We have the Excel sheet updated as well

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 8. Installation of the ODBC connector

The driver is installed from here http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/odbc/

The 32 and 64 bit drivers are installed due to an error that occurred when attempting to use them the first time

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Now we will uninstall the 32 bit version to make sure that it’s the 64 bit version which is working

The DSN still show the two names

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 If removing is successful

It means that the right driver is operational

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Finally we can open the Excel file

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 And change the value on the server

mysql>

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 then we wait until the values are updated on the Excel

And as the values are not updated, with the following error, therefore we need also the 32 bit version

Installing the 32 bit version

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Removing the 64 bit version of the MySQL Connector/ODBC

We are left with the 32 bit version only

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Creating a new ODBC DSN with the 32 bit version of the connector

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 But we face the following problem

Reinstalling again the 64 bit version

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Attempting to add a new data source

This time it works

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Adding the link in Excel

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Overwriting

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Can remove from the folder of links the old files

Only the current file is kept

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Changing the properties to refresh faster

Inserting an existing connection

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 And the result is correct

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 Checking whether it is ok after the update on the database side, as if you remember the lack of the 32 bit version caused an error message at the automatic refresh time.

mysql> mysql> mysql> select * from t; +------+------+ | x | y | +------+------+ | 10 | 4001 | | 11 | 21 | +------+------+ 2 rows in set (0.04 sec)

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54 mysql> No error this time

9. Conclusion

Both 32bit and 64bit drivers of MySQL ODBC are needed to be installed for the proper operation.

END of the file

Conclusion | printed on 2013-07-15 17:29 | Page 54 of 54