So today, I'll show you how to easily make Excel run a Stored Procedure to get data.

Step 1: Data tab – > From Other Sources -> From SQL Server

Step 2: Enter Credentials. Your server name can be an IP address

Step 3: Choose any old table or view. Pick a small one because we'll discard it later anyway.

Step 4: Excel will pop up the Import Data dialog box. Click Properties here (NOT THE OK BUTTON).

Step 5: Click on the Definition tab. There, change Command Type to SQL, and then enter your Stored Procedure name in the Command Text input.

Step 6: Excel complains about something….blah…blah…blah. Click Yes – (as in yes I know what I'm doing).

Step 7: Excel will activate the Import Data dialog box again. This time click OK to fire the Stored Procedure and return the results.

Step 8: Marvel at your results

Notes:

1. Excel will fire the Stored Procedure each time you "Refresh"
2. If you have to pass a parameter, you can enter it in the command text like this:

   

    

3. If you have to pass dynamic parameters you'll have to turn to VBA. I'll do a post on this later this week.
4. I assume you can do this with ORACLE databases too.
5. I've yet to test whether this will fire a Stored Procedure that doesn't return data. In other words, Stored Procedures that perform Insert, Update or Delete actions. I assume that if you can, there is the possibility of updating SQL from Excel through a simple connection. Pretty cool.

Now we all know you can pull data from Access into Excel using MS Query. The problem is that MS Query doesn't let you pull in Parameter queries. There may be a technical reason for this, but I like to think it's just Microsoft's way of keeping things interesting. After all, technical roadblocks are the spice of life.
If you've had enough spice, I'll show you a VBA workaround that will enable you to run an Access parameter query from Excel.

The Problem:

I've built this parameter query in Accesss. This particular query will ask the user for a Region and a Business Segment. This works fine in Access.

I've named this query MyParameterQuery.

The problem is when I try to connect to this query via MS Query in Excel, I don't see it in the list. It turns out that Parameter queries are not available in list of connectable objects.

Even if I try to get cocky, brute forcing MS Query to look at the query, I get the dreaded "Too Few Parameters" error.

The Solution:

My solution is to use a bit of VBA to pull the data based on parameters you enter directly into Excel.

The first step is to set up a spreadsheet like the one shown here.  You'll notice that the needed parameters will be fed from Cells D3 and D4.

Once your spreadsheet is ready to go, switch over to VBA and enter this code into a standard module.

Note: You will need to add a reference to the Microsoft DAO XX Object Library (where XX represents the latest version you have) .

After the code is ready, running it will make data magically appear based on your parameters!

Who needs MS Query?

This technique allows you to build some interesting reporting solutions with relatively little effort.

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Anyway, one of the more common requests I get is to allow a user to dynamically pass multiple criteria to a parameter. For example, a manager may want to pull in data for Tulsa, and Dallas, and Seattle at the same time.

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In this example, I've built a model where a user can use a Multi-select Listbox to choose Markets. The MS Query responds accordingly to bring back the chosen Markets.

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The selection of different Markets brings back another set of data.

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What's interesting about this is that I only have one parameter built into my MS Query connection. That's right; I'm passing multiple markets to one parameter.

Here's how it's done:

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Step 1: Build a basic MS Query connection without any parameters

Here, I've built a query that gives me all Markets.

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Step 2: Right-click anywhere inside the query table and select External Data Properties

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Step 3: Click Connection Properties

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Step 4: Add a WHERE clause that passes a parameter through an Instr function

The Instr function is designed to find the occurrence of a string within another string, returning the position number for the string you are trying to find.

The basic syntax is Instr(String to Search, String to Find)

In this example, I am using Instr(?, [Market]). This will evaluate each market to see if it is found in the parameter I am passing.

So if I literally pass multiple markets to my parameter separated by commas, (for example; "Denver, Tulsa, California"), all matching markets will evaluate to a position number greater than zero.

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The long and short of it is that a WHERE clause is added to the query that will only return records where the Market field evaluates to a position number greater than zero when thrown against my parameter. Thus:

WHERE (Instr(?, [Market])>0)

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Step 5: Set up your parameter to use a cell reference for future refreshes

In this example, I'm telling my query to get the parameter values from cell A1

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Once that is set up, any value placed in Cell A1 will trigger the MS Query to refresh.

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And because of our cool Instr function, we can request multiple markets in that one parameter.

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Setting up the Multi-Select ListBox

If you want to get fancy, you can add an ActiveX Listbox and configure it to be multi-select.

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Once you have your Listbox set up, you'll have to use a bit of code to pass the selected items to cell A1 ( the trigger for the query table).

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Excel 2003

You’ll notice that I’ve conspicuously not mentioned Excel 2003 yet.  Well this technique gets complicated in Excel 2003 - for a few reasons.

First, there is no easy way to change the SQL statement after the MS Query is built in Excel 2003.  You can do it via VBA, but it’s not practical enough to try to describe it here.

Second, MS Query has a conniption when you try to add the fancy Instr parameter in the MS Query Interface.  I’ve only been able to apply this technique by changing the SQL outside of MS Query.

Hopefully someone will suggest some obvious solution for Excel 2003 that I haven’t been able to find.

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*****UPDATE*****

Dick Kusleika and Jan Karl Pieterse developed an add-in that enables the editing of SQL statements in Excel 2003!  You can get it at http://www.jkp-ads.com/download.asp.  The add-in is called QueryManager. With this add-in, you can employ this technique without fighting MSQuery.