DataTable is an object representing an SQL-like table in memory. It's a standard .Net class. For a simple example, check out this blog post - it's for Dashboard DataSets, but around halfway through it shows a simple example of querying a database to get a DataTable object. You can also check out Microsoft's own documentation or just search this forum, there are plenty of examples. Note that you don't have to perform a database query to get a DataTable, they can be created in memory from scratch.
Hi Jack, I created the data table and was able to populate the table view. When I open the table view in an Excel file which is embedded in a dashboard, the numbers are correctly formatted with the commas. I used format(<number>,'C') in the SQL to populate the data table.
However, the number are being presented in excel aligned to the left sided instead of to the right side and when I save the excel file from the dashboard in my local drive the numbers are being saved as a text with a single comma before the number. Is that correct behavior? Would be a way to set the numbers alignment to the right and when saving the excel file set the values as numbers instead of text?
Thanks for the help,
That's what format does. When you use format, SQL server formats numbers into Text, and when you use that with populatefromdatatable with useDataTypes, EXCELwill now treat that as a TEXT field. How about just using it as it is (with DataTypes) and then format it in EXCEL?
The users want the excel populated and format ready. If there is no other way then I will discuss alternatives with them. Thank you for confirming the behavior.
You could file an enhancement request for the ColumnFormat like AsCurrency (there is already one for AsPercentage).
Did you set the last parameter (useDataTypes) as True in your PopulateFromDataTable call?
Its current set to True but I tried False as well and the result is the same when showing in Excel.
