Extracting data

You use a data extraction definition to extract data from your data source and display the results in Microsoft® Office Excel.

These are the four types of data extraction:

Summary Link: Creates a query that returns a single, aggregated value.
Summary Report: Creates a report containing a summary of aggregated data, grouped by specific fields.
Detail Report: Creates a report containing a list of results from the database. The results are not aggregated.
Reference Link: Creates a query that returns a single value. The result is not aggregated.

Depending on the definition type, query definitions can extract single or multiple table records from the database. Reference Link and Summary Link are formula link definitions. Summary Report and Detail Report are report definitions.

Data extraction definitions are stored as formulas in target cells, in Excel. If you highlight the target cell, then the formula is displayed in the Formula Bar. If you double-click a target cell containing a formula, then the data extraction dialog is displayed. You can change the query definition form and re-extract the query.

The target cell can be saved and copied to other locations in your workbook. The query definition is removed from the cell if the formula is deleted.