Charting Data from Excel

[DavidM]

Hello, all! I'm new to this group and trying to figure out a way to query
data from SQL Server 2000 into Excel to graph.

Basically, I have one row of data that is collected on a weekly basis that
reports the size of a various file that we send to customers. I would like
to have Excel read the database from whatever date range that I specify, and
have it graph the size of the file for both weekly, monthly, and yearly
sizes.

Can Excel query database directly?

Does anyone have any sample charts or tutorials online that I can see how to
do this?

I suppose I could export my SQL data to a .CSV file and load that into
Excel, but I'd rather not have to perform this step, if possible.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Nick Hodge]

David

Excel can get data directly from SQL using ODBC (and several others). I
have an example of obtaining data by ODBC here.

http://www.nickhodge.co.uk/gui/datamenu/dataexamples/externaldataexamples.htm


It uses Access but will work for SQL as you'll see in the examples.

You might also want to do the same with a pivot table chart or report using
the same sort of route, but via the menu option Data>Pivot table chart and
report, selecting external data source again. (Unfortunately not quite got
to Data menu on my web site yet! On Tools>Options...), so you might want to
check out.

http://peltiertech.com/Excel/Pivots/pivotstart.htm

--
HTH
Nick Hodge
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Southampton, England
(e-mail address removed)

 

[DavidM]

This is cool. I have some reading to do. Thanks for the help!

Do you know of any books that go over charting and accessing external data
for Excel?

My next big thing is that I'm capturing all my SQL Server database sizes
every week.

I would like to have a query setup to retrieve each week's database size and
group it by week.

I'd also like to display data in Excel and then have the chart/graph appear
in same workbook to the side or bottom of the data......

Ideas?

 

[aaron.kempf]

stop using Excel before it is too late

if you want to make pretty reports based on SQL Server 2000 data; the
last thing you should do is bring Excel into the mix.
Use Access Data Projects!!!

 

[DavidM]

I would I do this with Access? Can access create the same sort of graphs?