I'm working on building a dashboard for some of the higher-ups in my organization. The dashboard uses the information stored in Excel files made by several separate departments. The goal of the project is to automatically sync all of the separate Excel files and put them together to provide context. Then, take the information from the files to create a real-time performance dashboard.
What would be the best approach to do this? Is there a way to do this within Excel?
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We have 5 tables inside a database and we want to sync the data inside those tables to SharePoint online lists. All the modifications will still happen on the database tables, so the sync should only sync New/edited/Deleted data from the database to SharePoint and not from the other side.
The database tables can be accessed using ODBC. So what are the approaches we have to do such a sync:-
Using Power Automate Flow which runs on schedule basis?
Write a .net console application which reads the data from the database and update SharePoint using CSOM?
Other approaches
Any advice?
Thanks
I've been working on a PowerAutomate sync between an Excel Table and a bundle of Sharepoint lists, and one component that is proving quite useful for the Excel -> Sharepoint update direction is the "Sharepoint File or Folder Created or Modified" trigger.
If your database platform has the capacity to create small csv or json files corresponding to the changes you want to make, then one option might be to set aside some "new, change, delete" folders accessible to your PowerAutomate profile and to have your system pass in files with the records to be changed. Particularly if your db tables are particularly large, this might be a more efficient solution than periodically scouring the whole table to try to identify those changes proactively.
I am trying to create a data entry "app" to collect daily readings across our site. Here are the three biggest constraints:
Software - ideally, we would use some software within the Microsoft 365 Suite, mainly because those are the only approved apps on site. It may be possible to use open source software, but that might raise some flags in terms of security. So my thoughts are to use either Excel or Access.
Cost - ideally, we do not want purchase any additional software licenses. I would try and create something with Power Apps, but we do not have the licensing for an Azure or SQL server to store the data. I could be missing something here though.
Mobile-Friendly - finally, it needs to work on an Android tablet. Currently, we collect readings using pen and paper. The whole idea of this is to move towards using a tablet.
The easiest approach would be to create an Excel spreadsheet, save it on OneDrive, and edit the spreadsheet. I don't love this option because we are collecting 100's of data points each day. This would end up with a very wide spreadsheet that will be cumbersome to navigate.
The other option I looked into was creating an Access database and accompanying form and storing it on SharePoint. However, it seems Microsoft has stopped supporting Access databases on SharePoint.
I have created data entry forms using VBA, similar to this, but these do not work on mobile.
Is it possible to create a data entry form in Excel that also works on the Android version of Excel? Are there other alternatives I am not thinking of?
I am engaged in just this kind of project also. I have written an app in PowerApps, built an Excel spreadsheet and stored it in OneDrive, and am running it (the app) on an iPad. The design differs somewhat from your description of directly presenting a spreadsheet to the user (which I think PowerApps could do) because I don't want users having direct access to the data.
Edit: You do not need Azure or SQL, unless you are storing tons of data. Excel can be a satisfactory data storage location for modest uses.
I found the learning curve for PowerApps to be quite steep, as it's a different paradigm than line-by-line coding.
I think this is a more user friendly way to collect data than trying to run an Excel form, and once you get it made and polished, you'll look like a pro :)
I am by no means an expert but if you need some tips I'll do what I can to help. It sounds like we are at similar developmental stages.
Is it possible to create a data entry form in Excel that also works on the Android version of Excel? Are there other alternatives I am not thinking of?
Microsoft Forms does the job when created from OneDrive on mobile browser. Side note: the form I just created and the response I submitted have now disappeared from my OneDrive.
I also saw some people using Power Automate to save responses from a form into an Excel file (every reponse).
I need to create reports based on lists in SharePoint online. Is it possible? I don't want to use external tools.
There is no great way to generate reports from sharepoint. You can export your list to excel then create filters or sort the list depending on what you need to report off of. You can also just create views for your list that will display data in a report like fashion. Sharepoint is not really intended to be a reporting tool, it is mostly meant for a place for many users to view shared data and other resources.
Right now I export a large amount of data from a legacy system into CSV, then use excel macros to automatically filter and split up daily "inventory" for 20+ users to work. I've attempted uploading the CSV into access but it's too slow and ends up much larger than I want it to be.
I have all of the same data into a SQL server already. Normally I would set up my own web service and toss together a quick site. However I'm limited to Azure and office online products. I was wondering what Microsoft online product would be better to make dashboards for the users and distribute the work. I guess just need to know if I should focus on learning SharePoint online or Dynamics online or if MS has another product that would be a better fit.
I'm hoping this is possible.
The organization I work for has a Sharepoint site and I am able to Upload Files to pages, however I am not an admin on our Sharepoint. I'm not sure what the version is, I think its older (ie: 2005).
I have some Excel Reports I've built. The data for these reports is pulled from a SQL Server Database which I have full control over. I have setup a Job in SQL Server to run every 12 minutes, this procedure pulls in some data and updates a few tables. These tables are used to feed my Excel Reports.
I have a separate Scheduled task set to open my excel report(s) refresh the data connections and save as a PDF.
I would like to link to these PDF Files via our Sharepoint so that the VIPs can access the reports as they want, but they always see the most up to date report.
I was trying to link to a Shortcut to the PDF Files but SharePoint doesn't seem to like that. How do I make the SharePoint link point to the PDF File that is saved over every 15 minutes?
Thanks in advance,
Any insight is greatly appreciated.
The way I do it (newish version of Sharepoint) is make the save location for the PDF the network location where Sharepoint keeps the files for that site. Usually you'll have access to those if you can edit the Sharepoint site.
Here is a tutorial to find that network location.
EDIT: It very well may be disabled by the admin at the moment. But it looks like the functionality is there.
Given the age of your SharePoint (either 03 or 07), most of the modern tools that you could use to do this don't exist for you (Excel reporting, BI tools, etc). The easiest solution I can think of is to actually modify the other side of the equation. A few options:
Change your report to output two copies of the same file. One entitled (as an example) currentreport.xls and the other report20150626.xls . Put the link to the currentreport.xls in SharePoint.
Build an ASP.net page that runs the SQL query you have built and pull the data through a view. Since this would be pulled on demand, it may be a few more cycles of your SQL code, but indexing, caching and selective data pull can prevent this from being an issue. Put the asp.net code in an iFrame in a SharePoint content editor web part.
Build your report using SSRS and host the output of that in SharePoint using an iFrame.
Run a scheduled job in SQL that copies your current report data to a table and query that table instead of your normal report table. That way you only have one Excel file that points to a specific table so no need to update links. You can always keep copying data to specific files if you need a historical record and can't use the DB to store this data for you (though the amount of space that it would take to do so would be minimal).