we have a case management system stored with the vendor, and use an excel file on a server locally to access some data, so have an ODBC link setup with security etc.
We are looking to dump the server, and i want to know if there is a way to have the excel file which will be put onto a sharepoint folder have the ODBC link embedded or linked so that a specific machine is not needed to be setup for its use.
I hope that makes sense...
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I have a spreadsheet that is stored on a SharePoint site and I would like to link to this spreadsheet to create a "live" table in my Access database. When I go to Get external data->Excel->Link to the Data source by creating a linked table, I get an error because the filepath begins with http:. Is there a workaround for this? Thanks!
You cannot link to a web site, or a file sitting on some web site. You need (must) use the windows file networking system for this to work.
You thus could as a workaround download the file local, and then link to the local file.
Is the following behavior possible (using some features of Microsoft Office not very well known by a Linux guy)
Upload Microsoft Excel (or some other office file in Plone) as File content type
Save
When you click the file next time it opens directly in Microsoft Excel
When pressing Save in Excel it directly updates the file on the server, not the local temporary copy
I think Microsoft Office provides some APIs to do things like this but I have no idea how they work. Some Webdav URLs maybe?
Enabling external editing and using Zope External Editor Client (PYPI) should to do just that (for Archetype -based content types), but it must be installed on all client machines and may have issues. The development version should also support Dexterity-based content types.
I have a silverlight application inserted in a SharePoint page. The SilverLight application runs on a different server thatn that of SharePoint. From an event in the SilverLight, I generate a document on the server side from SQL Server. I can generate the doc on the server hosting the silverlight application and also copy it to the SharePoint server. I wanted to know if I can include this file in a sharepoint document library automatically. I was thinking if like emailing to a list allows us to copy the file into the library, can we configure the reverse, means copying the file make it part of the list.
Update:
I wanted to avoid uploading. For me uploading is sending the file from one location to the target location. But what I am saying is, if I copy the file into the folder where SharePoint keeps the file physically for the particular list, can it be added to the list automatically?
I am not sure, how well I am being able to describe the point. Please elaborate if required or I can answer your queries.
SharePoint stores the files in a database, not a folder.
WebDAV access may be what you're looking for - it's a backbone of the the Explorer View feature that allows a user to access a document library as if you were accessing a file system through a Windows Explorer window.
You can configure "incoming e-mail" properties for the document library, and assign an e-mail address.
After that, when you e-mail a document as attached to e-mail to this e-mail address, then attachment will be saved to that library by sharepoint automatically.
I'd like to use ODBC to link from one Excel (2007 version) spreadsheet to another, where both of them are stored on a website (an Intranet website using Sharepoint). Is this possible?
When I use the Excel ODBC wizard, it expects the Excel spreadsheet to be on a local drive, and doesn't let me supply a URL as the source. (just gives the message "Couldn't read file")
Thanks.
Is the Intranet location a WebDAV location?
(I believe Sharepoint is also a WebDAV server)
If so, Windows can mount WebDav locations as a local drive...
Perhaps the Excel ODBC driver can then use that?
I have a spreadsheet in Excel that connects to an internal DB using the odbc driver for the software (Action Request System). That works fine. Now I'm trying to move the Excel file to a SharePoint site so that our team can review the data and make notes in the same spreadsheet.
So, first I tried just moving the Excel file to the server, but realized that the connection saved in the file was pointing to the connection file on my computer. So I moved that to the SharePoint site, and this seems to be working... Except:
1) On some of the computers, it opens just fine. But I'd prefer it if the dialog that asks for the login and pw for the DB was customized.
2) On other computers, the software and drivers are installed, but not showing up in the user source list, so it throws an error. When the user goes to create a new connection, the driver is there, (so its not in the first list, but it is in the larger list).
3) Macs can open the file, but Excel 2008 can't do the macros and connections.
4) Opening the same file from the same site throws the Trust Center warning each time, even on the same computer/same user.
Is there a way to do any of the following?
Have a non-macro that keeps the user from saving (and thus overwriting) the sheet until it is confirmed that the user won't make changes to the connections/macros?
Allow the user to connect from a local config (in case they can set one up that works when the main one fails) so that they can connect using that one but not screw it up for everyone else.
Set the trust settings (local or on server, I suppose) so that any files from a specific SharePoint are always trusted?
Finally, and this is the big one...
Can you create a connection using a driver not on the local machine? If the driver is installed on a remote server, can Excel use that one? If that were the case, that would solve almost all other problems (Unless you're on a Mac).
I feel like I'm going at this slightly wrong, but since the team all need to see each others notes, our only other solution is to upload the data (from the DB) into a MySQL db so that they can make notes from their browser. This makes it more universally available, but forces us to script a lot of functions that are standard in Excel and create redundant DBs.
Wow! Access to the ARS via ODBC! I suggested that feature to the architect when I worked at Remedy HQ back in the nineties. Great times.
Anyhow, I think your approach of sharing an Excel sheet that connects to an ODBC source is not the easiest path. (As you've been discovering.) ]
ODBC is always a local driver, afaik. A client locally connects to ODBC. ODBC then can use the network to connect to the DB.
Instead, I suggest that you investigate setting up Access with a table that is remotely connected to the ARS system. You could then remotely open the Access table via file sharing as opposed to a dbms-connection. I believe that this would be easier to get going than your current path.
HTH,
Larry
It sounds like you are using a User DSN to make the connection. You can switch to a DSN less connection by using a connection string. If you need some help with that, can you post the code that needs modified?
First, thanks to both users that provided answers. Both of you were really helpful in getting my mind around the problem.
So, it turns out that while you can't easily connect to Action Request DB directly, AR does support Web Services.
Rather than attempt to make Excel, Access, PHP, or any other system deal with creating a Soap Client and handle the work themselves, I came up with an alternative that I think is fairly clever, if I do say so myself:
1) Created a php script that calls the Web Service with the requested data,
2) The script parses the response into a more generic XML form,
3) script echoes out the xml
4) Name the script "AR_Data_Request.xml"
5) Configure the directory, via the .htaccess file, to treat xml files like php
Now, I have a static xml file which always contains the most up-to-date data from Action Request. I can point any other apps (specifically Excel) to that xml file instead of having to write VBA code to query the web service directly (and still have to do it again for php).
The only problem is that I can't get the php to connect to the Web Service (doh!) but that will be my very next question.
Thanks again!