Excel file

Description

The Excel file option lets you to populate a List control with data from a Excel file.

Discussion

You can set the data source of a List control to an Excel file. At run-time, the file is downloaded and the data extracted from the file. The List is then populated with the data. When the List is refreshed, the remote file will be fetched again to repopulate the List control.

Excel file Data Source Properties

The following properties are available to configure the Excel data source.

• Arguments

  Arguments are variables that can be referenced when filtering or ordering the Excel data. An Argument can be populated from a session variable, page variable, or cookie. Arguments can also be statically assigned at design time or populated at run-time using the value of a control in the UX Component.

• Filename

  A URL that defines where the remote Excel file is located. At run-time, the remove Excel file will be downloaded. Data from the file will be extracted and used to populate the List control.

  An example URL is shown below.

  The Excel filename is specified as a URL.

  http://aadocuments.s3.amazonaws.com/misc/northwindCustomers.xlsx

• Sheet name

  The name of the sheet in the Excel file that contains the data. If no sheet name is specified, the first sheet in the Excel file is used.

• Filter

  An optional filter expression. The filter expression can be used to pre-filter the data shown in the List. The syntax for the filter is same as a WHERE clause for a SQL database. The filter can use arguments, as shown in the image below.

  

• Order

  An optional order expression. The order expression sorts the data retrieved from the Excel sheet before it is rendered in the List control. The syntax for the order is same as an ORDER BY clause for a SQL database.

• Return field

  The name of the field in the List data that contains the List's return value. This is the value that is used by the {dialog.object}.getValue() and {dialog.object}.setValue() methods.

  The data type for the Return field value is always a string.