Connecting to a database

Establish connection to a database.

Procedure

As a prerequisite for using Connect to Excel as a database, you must download and install the 2010 Access redistributable engine and the ODBC driver.

Note: Microsoft does not support OLEDB drivers for automation.
To connect to a database:

  1. Enter the session name.
  2. To complete the connection string, click Browse to show the Data Link Properties window.
  3. Select the database provider and enter the full path of the data source.
  4. To ensure that the database connection is working, click Test Connection.
  5. To enhance security, press the F2 key to insert a credential variable.
  6. Click Save.

When connecting to an Oracle database, if you encounter an error in initializing the provider, it is possible that a required driver for your Oracle database is not properly installed. Reinstalling the driver resolves the issue. For information about how to resolve this issue, see this article: Getting Error of Initializing Provider while Connecting to Oracle Database (A-People login required)