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SDMX Connector for EXCEL

Attilio Mattiocco edited this page Jun 28, 2018 · 15 revisions

The connector has been built and tested for Excel 2010. In order to use it with different versions of Excel some changes and adaptations are probably required.


How to build it

The only part of the connector that needs to be built is the Java library. Instructions can be found in the java section

NOTE: building the java library is not strictly necessary. A jar file, ready to be used, can be found in the release lib subdirectory


How to install it

  1. Download the latest stable release from the downloads section of the releases page and unpack it. Get the vba module files from the EXCEL directory.

  2. Import the SDMX module in the worksheet where you want the macro to be available. This can be achieved by importing the getTimeSeries.bas file in the Excel Visual Basic Editor (available in the Excel Developer tab).

  3. The getTimeSeries macro should now be available in the worksheet. To complete the configuration you could need to configure the following environment variables:

  • SDMX_LIB the pointer to the SDMX.jar file (not necessary if the jar is already on the system classpath)

  • SDMX_CONF the pointer to the configuration file (not necessary if you want to rely on default configuration)

  • SDMX_JAVA the pointer to the java executable you want to use (not necessary if you have a system configured one)

NOTE 1: As an alternative to the environment variables it is possible to configure the above characteristics by means of a specific worksheet called SDMX SETTINGS. Once the worksheet has been created, the path to the SDMX.jar library can be set in cell A1, the path to the configuration file in cell B1 and the path to the java executable in cell C1. See the following image as an example. This configuration is active only for the single workbook.

My image

NOTE 2: the macro can be made available to users in many different ways. The vba code can even be used to create an excel add-in that, once installed and activated, makes the macro available in every excel worksheet. Anyway these arguments will not be covered by this wiki.

How to use it

Once the macro is called, it will look for the needed parameters in the active worksheet:

  • cell A1: the name of the provider

  • cell B1: the time series id

  • cell C1: the start time (optional)

  • cell D1: the end time (optional)

My image

NOTE: to change the default observation order you can use the reverse.dump configuration key

The results can even be obtained in a tabular fashion by setting the table.dump configuration key

My image