Connect to Excel
Connect your DataHawk Snowflake database to Excel via ODBC for automatically refreshed data. No manual exports needed.
Instead of exporting data manually, you can connect your DataHawk-powered Snowflake database directly to Excel. This gives you automatically refreshed data inside an Excel file using an ODBC connection.
Estimated setup time: under 5 minutes.
Prerequisites
Before connecting Excel, make sure you have:
- Data sources connected: Your Amazon and/or Walmart accounts are connected and collecting data. If not yet, see Set up data first.
- A DataHawk Snowflake database: Activated and showing Enabled in your DataHawk App. Provisioning can take up to 4 hours. See Send data to your tool if you haven't set one up.
- Your Snowflake credentials: Available from Setup → Destinations → Snowflake → See Credentials in the DataHawk App.
Set up
Install the Snowflake ODBC driver
Download and install the Snowflake ODBC driver for your operating system:
Configure the ODBC data source
Search for ODBC on your computer to open the ODBC Data Source Administrator. In the User DSN tab, click Add > SnowflakeDSIIDriver > Finish, then fill in the fields using your DataHawk Snowflake credentials:
| ODBC field | DataHawk credential |
|---|---|
| Data Source Name | Any name you choose (e.g. "DataHawk") |
| User | Your Snowflake username |
| Password | Your Snowflake password |
| Server | Your Snowflake server URL |
| Database | Your DataHawk database name |
| Warehouse | Your Snowflake warehouse |
Connect Excel to your data source
In Excel, go to Data > Get Data > From Other Sources > From ODBC. Select the data source you just created, re-enter your User and Password when prompted, then browse and select the tables you want to load.
If you want to load only part of a table (specific columns, a date range, or merged data), use Transform Data to open the Power Query Editor before loading. See the Transform data with Power Query section below.
Schedule automatic refreshes
To keep your file up to date:
- In the Data tab, click Queries & Connections.
- Right-click on a query and select Properties.
- Tick Refresh data when opening the file: This updates data every time you open Excel.
- Optionally, tick Refresh every 999 minutes if you plan to keep the file open continuously.
Why 999 minutes? Excel's maximum scheduled refresh interval is 999 minutes (approximately 16 hours). Since DataHawk updates data once per day, refreshing when opening the file is sufficient for most users. The 999-minute option is only useful if you keep the file open across days.
Transform data with Power Query
Rather than loading an entire table (which can contain thousands of rows) and then filtering in Excel, a better approach is to use Power Query Editor to shape the data before it loads.
To open Power Query Editor:
- When importing a table, click Transform Data before loading
- For an already-loaded table: go to Data > Queries & Connections, then double-click a query
In Power Query Editor you can:
- Remove columns you don't need
- Add calculated columns
- Apply filters (e.g. last 30 days only)
- Merge multiple tables
- Write a custom SQL query
When finished, click Close & Load.
Limitations
Excel is not designed for large datasets. Keep the following in mind:
| Limit | Value |
|---|---|
| Maximum rows per worksheet | 1,048,576 |
| Maximum columns per worksheet | 16,384 |
These limits can be hit quickly if you load unfiltered large tables. Use Power Query filters or write a SQL query to limit your dataset to what you actually need. If you regularly need to analyze large volumes of data, consider using Power BI instead. DataHawk offers pre-built Power BI templates covering sales, advertising, keywords, and more.