Strategy for Incremental Datasource fetchings in Excel

Posted by user1352530 on Super User See other posts from Super User or by user1352530
Published on 2014-06-13T08:36:04Z Indexed on 2014/06/13 9:30 UTC
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I am in an scenario with a table that is refresh by a third app every week. I need to keep accumulating all data in Excel, using an ODBC connection to the database.

I am wondering

Approach 1: Is there a way to force Excel to append results for every update (this update would be triggered according to a parameter that indicates week)? I tried to define the table for which the connection loads using a dynamic reference but once is anchored first time, table position is never redefined

Approach 2: Use an ETL to accumulate all weekly results into a staging table and then connect Excel to it in real time. But, I would need a mechanism for caching old data, as I cannot grow exponentially the time Excel opens. Imagine after 10 years, Excel would need to update at opening 10 years fo data before showing it. Is there a way to store already fetched data and increment it at real time (when book is opened) by selecting new data (with a query/filter of something)

Thanks

EDIT: Maybe it's better to ask it that way: What is the optimal strategy for a table that keeps growing and needs to be read in real time by Excel? I just don't want to fetch absolutely all data after some months...

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