IBM Streams 4.3.0

Analyzing streaming data with IBM Streams for Microsoft Excel

You can show streaming data in Microsoft Excel 2010, 2013, or 2016 by dragging and dropping one of the available streams into a worksheet. The streaming data continually updates in the worksheet and can then be analyzed and visually represented through readily available features in Excel.

Before you begin

To use the Streams for Excel add-in, you must meet some prerequisites:

You have Microsoft Excel 2010, 2013, or 2016 and the Streams for Excel add-in is installed on your computer. An IBM® Streams administrator can download the add-in from the Streams Console for you.
You are logged in to an IBM Streams domain from Streams for Excel.
An SPL application is running on IBM Streams that provides at least one view that you can access as a stream from Streams for Excel. To provide a view, the application developer must add the @view annotation to an operator that is part of the SPL application.

About this task

You perform the following steps in Microsoft Excel 2010, 2013, or 2016.

Procedure

From the list of available streams in the Streams for Excel task pane, select the stream that you want to work with. If no streams are available, then the SPL application either does not create a view or you do not have the permissions to see the view.
Drag your selected stream into the worksheet. After you drop the selected stream into the worksheet, a box outline indicates the cells where the streaming data will be shown. Data starts to update continually as soon as you drop the selected stream and continues to update in the worksheet for while the stream is available.
If you want to work only with some parts of the data in a stream, which are known as attributes, expand the stream. Select only those attributes that you are interested in, then drag the attribute into the worksheet.
Analyze the data through features in Excel. Streaming data can be represented visually, with changes to the data reflected in charts that update as the data changes.
Optional: If only a subset of streams is of interest to you, you can mark these streams as favorites to make them easier to find in the future. These streams appear on the Favorites tab and can be dragged like any other stream. Favorites persist even if you log in to a different Streams domain, but you can stream data only for those streams that are currently available.

Results

When you drag a stream or an attribute into an Excel worksheet, an RTD formula that retrieves real-time data is written into the cell for each attribute. The formula when used with IBM Streams has the format:

=RTD("streams.rtdserver", "", "", "instanceName", "JobName", "ViewName", RowIndex, "AttrName")

The RTD formula includes the following arguments:

instanceName: The name of the IBM Streams instance where the IBM Streams application is running
JobName: The name of the job that the IBM Streams application is run as
ViewName: The name of the view buffering the streaming data
RowIndex: The row index in the buffer where sampled data is stored
AttrName: The name of the attribute for which you want to sample data

By default, 20 rows of streaming data are dropped into the worksheet. Each row of streaming data that you see represents one sample from the stream or attribute you dragged. You can change the number of rows of data that is dragged in the Streams for Excel Settings panel.