Questions Connecting to Acumatica OData from Microsoft Excel

Hi Rowlf,

OData is just a protocol, just like HTTP for websites, POP / SMTP for email, or SMS for text messages. It's just a way for computers to talk to each other.

OData allows other applications (like Microsoft Excel and Power BI) to "talk" directly to Acumatica securely. Actually, it communicates over the HTTPS protocol which is the same secure protocol that you use for online banking and even to access Acumatica itself. In fact, Acumatica doesn't really care if you are logging in via the normal Acumatica login screen that you're used to or via Excel over OData. The authentication process is exactly the same. That's important because you don't have to open any firewall ports, configure any VPNs, or install any additional software. As long as you can access Acumatica in your browser, you should be able to access your data via OData. It just works.

So think of OData as a pipe of data. That's great, but you need to pipe it somewhere.

One place to pipe it is to Microsoft Excel.

Take a look at this post:  http://www.augforums.com/connecting-to-acumatica-data-from-microsoft-excel

The post is a little old. For one, try.acumatica.com doesn't work anymore. For two, the way you do this in Excel 2016 is slightly different.

But at least it gives you an idea of how things work.

Also, there is a video at the bottom of the post which I am re-posting here.

I hope this helps.