Optimizing Excel Data Import for SQL Queries in Third-Party Integration
I need help solving I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here, but I'm working on a project and hit a roadblock..... Currently developing a system that integrates Excel data into SQL queries for reporting purposes. The goal is to streamline the import process while ensuring that our queries execute efficiently with minimal performance overhead. In the initial implementation, I used OLEDB to connect Excel with SQL Server. Here’s a snippet of the code I’ve been trying: ```vb Dim conn As Object Set conn = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection") conn.Open "Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source='path_to_excel_file.xlsx';Extended Properties='Excel 12.0 Xml;HDR=YES;'" ``` This setup works for basic data transfer, but I’ve noticed that as the volume of data increases, the execution time of the queries becomes unacceptable. To mitigate this, I attempted to load the data into a staging table first, using a bulk insert: ```sql BULK INSERT StagingTable FROM 'path_to_excel_file.xlsx' WITH ( DATA_SOURCE = 'ExcelSource', FIRSTROW = 2 ) ``` Despite following this approach, I still experience significant delays. Exploring the idea of optimizing the Excel data format, I’ve converted the Excel file to CSV and then imported it, but the performance gain isn’t substantial either. Are there best practices or design patterns for efficiently handling large datasets from Excel in SQL that I might be missing? I’ve also thought about using a stored procedure to handle the data transformation within SQL, but that introduces complexity in managing the data types between Excel and SQL, especially when dealing with dates and numeric formats. The SQL Server version is 2017, and the Excel files often contain mixed data types, which complicates bulk operations. While debugging, I found that the inconsistency in the Excel data types leads to errors like `Conversion failed when converting date and/or time from character string`. What strategies can I employ to optimize this integration process and ensure smoother data imports without sacrificing query performance? My development environment is Linux. What am I doing wrong? I recently upgraded to Sql latest. Could someone point me to the right documentation? I've been using Sql for about a year now. How would you solve this?