EASA Help Pages

User Tools

Site Tools

You are here: EASA 6.1 » Author Guide » Excel Desktop Client

Sidebar

About EASA | Contact

Contents

Table of Contents

Excel Desktop Client

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

An Excel Desktop Client interface (or an Excel Client) provides streamlined Authoring for any EASA customer who uses an Excel spreadsheet to conduct a business analysis of new or existing 'cases'.

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

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

Overview

A 'case' is a generic data record that is created or modified via user-interaction 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

Excel Desktop Client, components and behavior

An Excel Client is:

  • An Excel spreadsheet on the User's desktop machine,
  • Initialized with default, or, existing case data from a database,
  • Equipped with the 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

Next...

To see an Excel Client in action, complete the following:

  1. Get started with EASA
  2. Get started with an Excel Desktop Client EASAP
  3. Author a simple Excel Client/EDC EASAP

To rapidly configure and deploy a spreadsheet as an Excel Client use an EDC template

Finally there are a few details an Author should know before using Excel to conduct a database-linked analysis, see Excel Desktop Client Reference

Overview | Get started with EDC | Simple EDC Example | EDC template | EDC reference

Page Tools