I've been searching the internet for hours trying to figure out if the following is even possible:
To choose the AS400 query records directly from Excel.
I haven't found any solution or description of how this could be achieved, which makes me guess that it's simply not possible. However, I haven't seen anyone confirm that it is impossible.
So my question is: Is this possible? And if it is, could you point me in the right direction in order for me to start learning how to do it?
I know its possible to run a query from Excel, and then adding parameters via SQL statements, but in my case, this presents several problems that could be avoided by choosing the records before the query is executed.
Example:
I have a query with a column (lets call it ColVal
) that can hold the values 1 and/or 2. In the AS400 program under the menu "Work with queries" and then "Choose records" I can specify which records the query should contain when it has run based on the value in ColVal
. This means i can get three different situations (A, B and C) when i run the query:
A) The query only contains records where the value in ColVal
is 1
B) The query only contains records where the value in ColVal
is 2
C) The query contains records where the value in ColVal
is either 1 or 2
The goal is to be able to choose which situation I want from Excel in order to circumvent opening and using the AS400 program.
However, using situation C and then editing the query in Excel with an SQL statement to mimic situation A or B is not an option, as this means the query still contains undesired records.
This whole thing boils down to the following: Is it even possible to run the query from Excel essentially changing the data it contains and not just outputting it to excel? If this is possible, is it then possible to pass a parameter to the AS400 system and use it to create situation A, B or C?
I hope this example makes sense.
Edit - New example
Say i have different customers A and B. I can open the AS400 program and run a query in which i have specified that I only want data on customer A. I can then open Excel and use filters (as Hambone described) on the query to determine which records I want to output. However, if I want to work with data from customer B, I have to open the AS400 again and run the query with different parameters. I would like to be able to "change" my dataset from customer A to B from Excel, without having to include both in my recordset and then filter out one of them.
I imagined this is doable if you could pass a parameter to the AS400. The AS400 then runs the query using this parameter as the criteria for which records should be stored in the query. This means that if the parameter is Customer B, then there is no way to acces data from customer A, without running the query through AS400 again.
Any ideas are greatly appreciated :)
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