How to supply your own web query

I want to put an excel sheet on my website and then allow a user to connect
up to it using a web query. Dopes anyone know whewre I may find a tutorial
on how to do this or is it as simple as putting the excel (or csv) file on
the site and then pointing the web wuery in the workbook to it? Any help
much appreciated. Mark

mark,

there was an Excel 97 SDK, that has some info in webqueries. After that
AFAIK MS when silent on this function. I would not depend on this
function, it his flakey and tricky to use. A webquery is in fact an
HTML table.Webquery parameters are in Fact HTML POST or Get parameters.
Try some testing and see if it works for you.
Are you shure you want to go from an excel file to a web page and back
to an excel file?

If you are just providing internally maybe think of a database. I would
suggest linking to the excel sheet using Get external Data. If it is
for the internet, just upload your file as a csv file for download is
also possible.

DM Unseen

Thanks for that,

What I am actually intending is to supply data to a commercial application
but I am not allowed by the source of the info to supply the raw data so
waht I need to do is to 'load' the data into the application. One way I
thought of getting round it is to allow the user to download the csv file to
his hard drive but somehow make it inaccessible and then use some
programming I learnt ages ago to pull data from a file (it was an excel
hopefully it will work for a csv) without opening the file. Anyone know if
this is possible?

Kind regards, Mark


"DM Unseen" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> mark,
>
> there was an Excel 97 SDK, that has some info in webqueries. After that
> AFAIK MS when silent on this function. I would not depend on this
> function, it his flakey and tricky to use. A webquery is in fact an
> HTML table.Webquery parameters are in Fact HTML POST or Get parameters.
> Try some testing and see if it works for you.
> Are you shure you want to go from an excel file to a web page and back
> to an excel file?
>
> If you are just providing internally maybe think of a database. I would
> suggest linking to the excel sheet using Get external Data. If it is
> for the internet, just upload your file as a csv file for download is
> also possible.
>
> DM Unseen
>

About the only way I could see you meeting the requirement is to have your
application remotely get the data from a centralized (non-resident) database
that has sufficient sophistication to achieve the security level desired.
Or to compile the information in an executible which excel can load into
memory and retrieve the data from. In either case, the data probably would
be stored in an encrypted state and decrypted by your program.

Your proposed security scheme is so weak it probably wouldn't be worth the
effort to implement.

If you are really serious about this project of yours, you might consider
hiring an individual or firm with a proven track record for the skills you
need to put it together for you and make a product that is secure and
marketable.

--
Regards,
Tom Ogilvy


"Mark Stephens" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Thanks for that,
>
> What I am actually intending is to supply data to a commercial application
> but I am not allowed by the source of the info to supply the raw data so
> waht I need to do is to 'load' the data into the application. One way I
> thought of getting round it is to allow the user to download the csv file
to
> his hard drive but somehow make it inaccessible and then use some
> programming I learnt ages ago to pull data from a file (it was an excel
> hopefully it will work for a csv) without opening the file. Anyone know if
> this is possible?
>
> Kind regards, Mark
>
>
> "DM Unseen" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > mark,
> >
> > there was an Excel 97 SDK, that has some info in webqueries. After that
> > AFAIK MS when silent on this function. I would not depend on this
> > function, it his flakey and tricky to use. A webquery is in fact an
> > HTML table.Webquery parameters are in Fact HTML POST or Get parameters.
> > Try some testing and see if it works for you.
> > Are you shure you want to go from an excel file to a web page and back
> > to an excel file?
> >
> > If you are just providing internally maybe think of a database. I would
> > suggest linking to the excel sheet using Get external Data. If it is
> > for the internet, just upload your file as a csv file for download is
> > also possible.
> >
> > DM Unseen
> >
>
>

Thanks for that Tom,

I am building a prototype of the programme in excel first using my (limited)
programming knowledge and not worrying about much other than getting it
working. Then the plan is to turn it over to an expert to build it into a
robust and professional application (do you do such work ?) possibly using
VB6 or VB.NET to interface with excel and turn most of the code into
compiled dll's so it does not 'hand it on a platter' to someone who may want
to replicate it and can be distributed under license.

The other option would be to engage someone 'off the bat' to build it and
teach me how this works; I've never been involved in developing an
application so don't really have a frame of reference but does my plan to
build a prototype and then get it built professinally seem like a reasonable
strategy to you or would you think it's best to start by working with
someone straight away?

kind regards, Mark


"Tom Ogilvy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:%[email protected]...
> About the only way I could see you meeting the requirement is to have your
> application remotely get the data from a centralized (non-resident)
> database
> that has sufficient sophistication to achieve the security level desired.
> Or to compile the information in an executible which excel can load into
> memory and retrieve the data from. In either case, the data probably
> would
> be stored in an encrypted state and decrypted by your program.
>
> Your proposed security scheme is so weak it probably wouldn't be worth the
> effort to implement.
>
> If you are really serious about this project of yours, you might consider
> hiring an individual or firm with a proven track record for the skills you
> need to put it together for you and make a product that is secure and
> marketable.
>
> --
> Regards,
> Tom Ogilvy
>
>
> "Mark Stephens" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> Thanks for that,
>>
>> What I am actually intending is to supply data to a commercial
>> application
>> but I am not allowed by the source of the info to supply the raw data so
>> waht I need to do is to 'load' the data into the application. One way I
>> thought of getting round it is to allow the user to download the csv file
> to
>> his hard drive but somehow make it inaccessible and then use some
>> programming I learnt ages ago to pull data from a file (it was an excel
>> hopefully it will work for a csv) without opening the file. Anyone know
>> if
>> this is possible?
>>
>> Kind regards, Mark
>>
>>
>> "DM Unseen" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> news:[email protected]...
>> > mark,
>> >
>> > there was an Excel 97 SDK, that has some info in webqueries. After that
>> > AFAIK MS when silent on this function. I would not depend on this
>> > function, it his flakey and tricky to use. A webquery is in fact an
>> > HTML table.Webquery parameters are in Fact HTML POST or Get parameters.
>> > Try some testing and see if it works for you.
>> > Are you shure you want to go from an excel file to a web page and back
>> > to an excel file?
>> >
>> > If you are just providing internally maybe think of a database. I would
>> > suggest linking to the excel sheet using Get external Data. If it is
>> > for the internet, just upload your file as a csv file for download is
>> > also possible.
>> >
>> > DM Unseen
>> >
>>
>>
>
>