Guide Section: Excel Desktop Client
Overview | Get started with EASA Eval | Get started with EDC | Simple EDC Example | EDC reference

The Excel Desktop Client or Excel Client interface allows streamlined Authoring whenever an Excel spreadsheet is used to conduct a business analysis of a new or existing 'case'.

An Excel Client is a responsive and familiar Excel-based user interface with database-persistent named ranges.

For a comparison of both EASA 6.0 user interfaces, read Excel Client vs. in-browser EASAP.

A 'case' is a generic data record that is created or modified by interacting within an existing spreadsheet.

A common business process might involve a sequence such as,

1. Search for, select and view a case record in a database or create a new record
2. Import this data into cells in an Excel spreadsheet
3. Modify one or more input cells
4. Conduct an analysis using formulas, macros and VBA within the spreadsheet
5. Update the case record in the database with the new or modified data

An Excel Client is an Excel spreadsheet on the User's desktop machine initialized with existing case data from a database, and which has the built-in capability to write a case record back to the database via the EASA Ribbon.

Excel Desktop Client support consists of three main components,

• CASE VIEWER to search for, view and select a database case record within an EASAP
• DATABASE TO EXCEL DESKTOP to inject the case record into an Excel spreadsheet
• EASA Ribbon→Save to store the modified case record to the database

Let's explore the details of the sequence outlined above….

1. An Excel Client EASAP launches with a CASE VIEWER table.
2. With a CASE VIEWER and optionally one or more Child FILTER's,
   • A User may query the database for cases that meet specific criteria
   • A User then selects a single case from the table, and clicks a button
3. DATABASE TO EXCEL DESKTOP ACTION delivers a temporary Excel Client spreadsheet initialized with that case's data
   • A User may modify the case within Excel, macros or formulae will update output cells
4. Once an analysis is complete, the User clicks EASA→Save in Excel to store the modified case to the database

• To see an Excel Client in action, complete the following,
  1. Get started with EASA Evaluation on Windows
  2. Get started with an Excel Desktop Client
  3. Author a simple Excel Client EASAP

Finally there are a few details an Author should know before using Excel to conduct a database-linked analysis. See,

• Excel Desktop Client Reference.