Embedded Files
Steps to create a Web Query
Step 1
Use of this feature requires Microsoft Excel. Open a new Excel spreadsheet or a preexisting spreadsheet
that you would like to use for graphing. With Excel opened as below and a WOW application running with
your target data showing, you are ready to begin the web query process. Excel provides the ability to
perform a “web query” to get data. The web query is just a URL call that returns data in an HTML format.
Excel allows you to specify an HTML table to use as a data source. In Excel go to Data –> Import External
Data –> New Web Query to get data from a WOW HTML table.
Step 2
This enables Excel users to code a web query that invokes a WOW operation and puts the results into a
“PREBUILT” Excel worksheet. Data can be refreshed on demand. Before creating the Web Query, there is
some information that needs to be noted and changed about the application for it to be properly shown in
Excel. The application like shown below has many queries but for this example we are only going to worry
about the “employees” operation.
Step 3
Creating a table from MS Excel provides the ability to perform a web query to get data. The web query is
just a URL and EXCEL look for table data and loads it.
NOTE: You can use any query operation to get data.
Step 4
A common problem is that when the table data is imported or refreshed, copy and delete
icons will show up on the excel spreadsheet, which may be undesirable. Simply adjust the
operation to disable those features. Refer to the appropriate areas of this manual to
adjust these features.
In the display menu for the Operation you may want to disable the options for Details, Inserts, Deletes,
and Updates so they won’t be shown on the table. You may also remove the “copy row” feature in the
display properties by setting it to false as shown below. Now that all the extra options are turned off,
make sure you write down the Operation ID located in the Internal section of properties. Excel will use
this ID to recognize the specific operation within the application to get data from.
Step 5
If you only want certain columns of a table to display in Excel you could write those columns in the Display
Columns field with commas between columns. Then only those columns would show in WOW and be updated
in Excel. After changing all extra options and writing down the Operation Id (above ex. 1242), update the
operation.
Step 6
Click on the name of the application to run it in a new browser window, then copy the generated URL or
write it down. This is the URL that will used by Excel Web Query. It should look similar to this:
http://www.planetjavainc.com/wow/runApp?opid=1242
NOTE: ?opid=1242 specifically tells WOW to look for operation with ID 1242 to run to gather the data for the Web Query. Replace the 1242 with the Operation ID of your Web Query operation.
Now we are ready to go through the Excel import external data process.
Bring up the Excel spreadsheet that was previously opened and start a new web query.
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