Will database connectivity be implemented in office.js?

[hobrob]

Will there ever be anything like the ADODB object implemented in office.js which will facilitate ODBC-like (presumably JDBC) connectivity? As a DBA, I've always found Excel VBA great for connecting to my DBMS (Teradata) and churning out custom charts for monitoring and the like at a button click. If I know this same connectivity will be implemented in the future I can at least start getting to know the Excel components that already exist in anticipation of building in database connections at a later date.

[kbrandl]

@hobrob thanks for your interest in Office.js. Since issues in this GitHub repository (OfficeDev/office-js-docs) are intended for providing feedback about the Office.js API Open Specifications, I'm closing this issue.

But first, some feedback about your inquiry:

• Since an Office (web) Add-in is simply the web application that you create, plus an XML manifest that defines the add-in's settings and capabilities, you can build it to do whatever any web app is capable of doing -- including querying data from an external data source. Office.js provides APIs that enable your add-in to interact with the Office host (e.g., Excel, Word, etc.). If you want your add-in to query external data sources as you've described, it could certain do so -- but you'd be doing that via typical web dev techniques, not by using anything Office.js explicitly provides.

I hope that helps. If you feel strongly that Office.js should provide something like you've described in your question, you might consider adding this feature request to the Office Dev UserVoice site. Feature Requests submitted via UserVoice are regularly reviewed by the product teams as they plan future releases of the Office.js APIs.

[hobrob]

Thanks @kbrandl and apologies if I've posted this in the wrong area. On the one hand that makes a bit more sense now, on the other hand, possibly due to my being a bit behind the times when it comes to web dev, I'm a bit confused as to how this would hang together with just JavaScript and without some kind of server-side component that would do the DB connectivity bit. I think I just need to spend a bit of time getting to know the general concepts around add-ins first, think hard about what sort of end product I want to create, then go from there.