How to connect Microsoft Excel with SharePoint

This "how-to-connect" documentation will explain the initial configuration of an example connection from Microsoft Excel to a SharePoint Online List in Office 365. We will be synchronizing data stored in Microsoft Excel.

This guide presupposes that you have installed the Layer2 Cloud Connector and that you are familiar with its basic functionality. The Layer2 Cloud Connector User Documentation will provide you with all necessary information.

Contents

1. Configuring Microsoft Excel

2. Configuring the Layer2 Cloud Connector

2.1 Creating a new connection

2.2 Configuring the Data Entity 1

2.3 Configuring the Data Entity 2

2.4 Running your connection

3. Hints and known issues

3.1 Connection direction

3.2 Data model

1. Configuring Microsoft Excel

You do not need to configurate nothing for the connection with Microsoft Excel. The only needed information are the path to the file, the filename and the sheet name your want to synchronize to.

2. Configuring the Layer2 Cloud Connector

2.1. Creating a new connection

Create a new connection by using the Create New Connection option in the Actions pane (right-hand side). The new connection will appear at the bottom of the Connection Manager List (left-hand side). Click on your newly created connection to open the connection configuration settings.

Choose a meaningful name for your connection and replace the current "New Connection" Connection Title with it.

Connections to Microsoft Excel can be bi-directional. An initial connection should always be uni-directional to assure that both data entities are identical before switching to bi-directional. Therefore, choose Left to Right as Direction. You can change this setting after your initial synchronisation finished successfully.

2.2. Configuring the Data Entity 1

We will now set up our Data Entities. Go to the data entity “Data Entity 1” to open the configuration settings.

Choose a Data Entity Title. It is recommended to give your entities meaningful names to maintain an overview when you decide to set up multiple connections.

Select the Data Provider for Microsoft Excel from the data provider list. You can search for Microsoft Excel by typing into the selection box.

For the Connection String, we need the in step 1 mentioned information. You can copy the below connection string and adjust it to match your gathered information. Use the Verify Connection String option to evaluate if the provided connection string is valid.

ExcelFile="Pathtoexcelfile.xlsx";	

• "ExcelFile=pathtothefile" this property defines the path and the file that will be used.

The Select Statement text box is used to define specific data queries. We will be gathering the fields id, name, surname, gender, date and personid. Selecting all the fields with the * operator will give you an error, once the RowId is a read-only field. Select the fields you want to retrieve data from or write into manually. You can copy the below select statement and adjust it to match your needs. Save your changes by using the right-hand pane option Save Changes.

SELECT id, name, surname, gender, date, personid FROM Sheet1

To check if all necessary columns are received, you can use the Preview Data option on the right-hand pane which will provide you with a pop-up window showing your sample data from your Microsoft Excel entity.

2.3. Configuring the Data Entity 2

We are going to send the data to a custom SharePoint Online list. It's required that you set up this list prior to the next steps. Your list should contain matching columns according to your source entity.

Use the left-hand pane to switch to the data entity "Data Entity 2". We will be using the Layer2 SharePoint Provider for this setup. 

For more information about the SharePoint provider visit:

https://www.layer2solutions.com/support/cloud-connector-faqs/layer2-csom-sharepoint-ado-net-provider.

You can copy the below Connection String which contains the minimum of required properties to connect to your custom SharePoint Online list.

URL=https://your_custom_sharepoint_list_url/AllItems.aspx;Authentication=Office365;User=User@domain.com;

• "URL=https://your_custom_sharepoint_url/AllItems.aspx;" this property defines the URL of your custom list that will be addressed.
• "Authentication=Office365;" this property will determine the authentication method used. Office 365 is the default authentication method to access Microsoft Office 365 / SharePoint Online. This method will not work in case of federation, e.g. ADFS. For further authentication method, you can consult the provider specifications linked above.
• "User=User@domain.com;" this property should describe the user you wish to connect to SharePoint to. 

Enter the password that belongs to the user account used in the connection string into the Password field. Save your changes by using the right-hand pane option Save Changes.

In the next step, we will configure our mapping settings. Click on the Mappings option on the left-hand pane. If your fields from SharePoint are named identical to the fields from your source system, the Enable Auto Mapping option will match those columns. Disabling this option allows you to match your columns as needed. Save your changes by using the right-hand pane option Save Changes.

2.4. Running your connection

To run your connection switch back to the main connection configuration node and use the Run Now Button located on the bottom of the setup page. The Run Synchronization Toolbox will also display the synchronization process. 

Below is a data preview of the information we have accessed in our source entity:

This will be the result in our SharePoint Online list after our initial successful synchronization:

If you want to use a bi-directional synchronisation, you can now switch your connection direction after our first initial synchronisation run finished successfully. See section 3.1 for further information.

3. Hints and known issues

3.1. Connection direction

As far as tested, this connection supports uni-directional as well as bi-directional synchronisations.

After adjusting the direction to bi-directional, you should check your Mappings settings again because some systems might include read-only columns that cannot be mapped directly: RowId should not be set in bi-directional connections.

We also recommend choosing a Conflict Resolution that matches your environment's needs. You can find out more about the different conflict resolutions in our Layer2 Cloud Connector User Documentation. 

If you use the * operator in the SELECT statement in bi-directional connections, you will get an error saying the RowId has a null value. Selecting the fields individually with a query like in the example excluding the RowId fiel should workaround the problem: 

SELECT id, name, surname, gender, date, personid FROM Sheet1

3.2. Data model

To see all the tables and views you can access with the Microsoft Excel provider, use these queries in the Select Statement:

SELECT * FROM sys_tables

SELECT * FROM sys_views

If there are more tables or views available, you can load them with the option "load more" in the popup window.

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