Using Excel

Our users typically work intensively with Excel and we take great effort to optimally integrate between XLReporting and Excel. Both in terms of look & feel of the application, as in terms of exchanging data.

This page explains the various ways of integration.

Spreadsheet

Our web-based spreadsheet, toolbar, and functions are compatible with Excel. If you know your way around Excel, you can work with XLReporting.

Using our spreadsheet you can build powerful models for reporting and planning. Models in XLReporting can only contain logic and layout, but no data. The data is always inserted realtime, subject to the rules of your model, which makes models far more robust and consistent compared to normal spreadsheets.

Export and import

All data in XLReporting can be exported to Excel, and imported from Excel where applicable. If you have lots of data to be edited, it can sometimes be faster to do that in Excel using search & replace, copy down etc. Simply export the data, edit in Excel, and import it back again.

Similarly, you can export any and all data and work with it in Excel if you want.

Please note that this option is only visible if your user role has Export data and Import data permissions.

Excel queries

In addition to exporting data and reports to Excel, you can also access XLReporting data sets and reports directly from Excel workbooks using saved queries. You can define cell formatting, formulas, charts, and pivot tables in your Excel workbook using this data. This enables you to build free-form Excel workbooks of your own design with realtime data from XLReporting. The data will be automatically refreshed at any time without having to login to XLReporting.

XLReporting creates a small file for you specific to each data set or report, which you can open in Excel via Data - Get external data - Run saved query, or via Data - Get external data - Web query. That creates a connection to your workbook without any manual steps.

You can choose to store your API token and selected values in the file, or leave them as runtime parameters.

Please note that this option is only visible if your user role has Export data and Access API permissions.

See Define data sets and Define reports for more information.

API token

If you want to use Excel queries, you need a valid API access token. Tokens are assigned to users, and you can request a token through Account - Users. Once issued, tokens are valid for 360 days, but you can revoke tokens, renew tokens, and issue new tokens, at any time.

Need any help?

We have many examples and tutorials available for Excel integration, and we provide free consulting, so please contact us anytime.