Can I scrape data from an embed excel worksheet on my web page to send to my SQL Server database

Question

I am looking for solution to taking a template excel document and embedding it onto my website. After this users will use the template filling out certain cells. Is it possible for me to scrape a embedded excel sheet and use POST methods to send the data to my SQL Server database.

I want to embed the template because I need to change it from time to time, which means I love to have it easily changed within my code using the embed and iframe.

I have looked online and haven't found any solid documentation that this is possible.

Answer 1

I suggest that you start by thinking about the differences between data in an Excel spreadsheet and data in a normalised SQL Server database. For example, suppose you have a spreadsheet that you use to record downloads of "digital items" such as pdf files, word documents, .zip files, and so on. Each column represents a date and each row represents a digital item. So lest say Row 4 is for "The Cat Story.pdf" and Column 3 is for "15 February 2019. and Column 4 is for 16 February 2019 and so on. The value in Cell Row 4-Column 3 is "206", and the value in Cell Row 4-Column 4 is "327".

These two cells represent the following facts: Fact 1: The pdf "Cat Story" was downloaded 206 times on 15 Feb 2019. Fact 2: The pdf "Cat Story" was downloaded 327 times on 16 Feb 2019.

In an SQL Server database you could store such facts in a simple table called "Downloads" with Column 1=Item name, Column 2=Date and Column 3 = Number of downloads.

My longwinded explanation is to make it clear that in your case you are using an Excel spreadsheet as a tool to display data whereas the purpose of a well-designed SQL Server database is to store facts without any duplications.

After you have decided on a normalised design for your SQL Server database, you can link your Excel spreadsheet directly to the data in your database.