Unleash the Power of Excel Online Data with UBOS and MCP Servers

In today’s data-driven landscape, the ability to seamlessly connect Large Language Models (LLMs) like Claude to diverse data sources is paramount. The UBOS platform, with its focus on AI Agent development, empowers businesses to orchestrate AI Agents, connect them with enterprise data, and build custom AI Agents, significantly enhancing operational efficiency and decision-making capabilities. One crucial aspect of this connectivity is bridging the gap between LLMs and valuable data residing in applications like Excel Online. This is where MCP (Model Context Protocol) Servers come into play.

What is an MCP Server?

MCP is an open protocol standardizing how applications provide context to LLMs. An MCP Server acts as a translator, allowing AI models to access and interact with external data sources and tools. Instead of requiring LLMs to understand the intricacies of each data source’s API or query language, the MCP Server provides a standardized interface. This simplifies the integration process and empowers users to leverage LLMs for data-driven insights without needing specialized technical skills.

UBOS and MCP Servers: A Powerful Combination

UBOS leverages the power of MCP Servers to provide a comprehensive AI Agent development platform. By integrating with MCP Servers, UBOS enables AI Agents to:

• Access Real-Time Data: Connect to live data sources, ensuring AI Agents have the most up-to-date information for decision-making.
• Automate Data-Driven Tasks: Automate tasks that require data retrieval, analysis, and action, freeing up human employees for more strategic initiatives.
• Improve Decision-Making: Enhance decision-making by providing AI Agents with access to a broader range of data, leading to more informed and accurate insights.
• Customize AI Agent Capabilities: Tailor AI Agent capabilities by connecting them to specific data sources and tools relevant to their designated tasks.

Excel Online MCP Server by CData: A Deep Dive

This specific MCP Server, built by CData, focuses on enabling LLMs (specifically Claude Desktop) to query live data from Excel Online. It’s a read-only server, meaning the LLM can retrieve data but cannot modify it directly through this server. CData utilizes its JDBC Driver for Excel Online to expose Excel Online data as relational SQL models. The MCP Server then wraps this driver, making the data accessible through a simplified MCP interface.

Use Cases for the Excel Online MCP Server:

• Data Analysis and Reporting: Empower Claude to analyze data within Excel Online spreadsheets and generate reports based on natural language queries. For example, you could ask Claude: “What is the average sales revenue for the last quarter?” or “Which product line had the highest growth in sales this year?”
• Data Summarization: Ask Claude to summarize key findings from large Excel Online datasets, saving time and effort in manual review.
• Trend Identification: Use Claude to identify trends and patterns in Excel Online data, providing valuable insights for business strategy.
• Integrating Excel Data into AI workflows: Using UBOS platform, create powerful AI workflows involving AI Agents using Claude to analyze data within Excel Online spreadsheets, with results from the analysis used by other agents in the workflow.

Key Features:

• Read-Only Access: Ensures data integrity by preventing accidental modifications from the LLM.
• CData JDBC Driver Integration: Leverages CData’s robust and reliable JDBC Driver for seamless connectivity to Excel Online.
• Simplified MCP Interface: Provides a user-friendly interface for LLMs to interact with Excel Online data, eliminating the need for complex SQL queries.
• Natural Language Querying: Allows users to retrieve data using natural language questions, making data access more intuitive and accessible.
• SQL Translation: Converts natural language queries into SQL queries understood by the CData JDBC Driver.
• Easy Setup: The setup guide provided simplifies the process of configuring the MCP Server and connecting it to Claude Desktop.

Setting up the Excel Online MCP Server

The process of setting up the Excel Online MCP Server involves several key steps:

1. Cloning the Repository: Obtain the necessary files by cloning the GitHub repository.
2. Building the Server: Compile the code to create the JAR file.
3. Downloading and Licensing the CData JDBC Driver: Download the CData JDBC Driver for Excel Online and activate the license (a trial license is available).
4. Configuring the Connection: Use the CData JDBC Driver’s Connection String utility to configure the connection to Excel Online, providing the necessary credentials.
5. Creating a .prp File: Create a configuration file containing connection details, including the JDBC URL, driver path, and server name.
6. Configuring Claude Desktop: Modify the Claude Desktop configuration file to add the new MCP Server, specifying the path to the JAR file and the .prp file.

Interacting with the Server

Once the MCP Server is configured, you can interact with it through Claude Desktop using natural language queries. The server provides a set of tools, including:

• {servername}_get_tables: Retrieves a list of available tables in Excel Online.
• {servername}_get_columns: Retrieves a list of columns for a specific table.
• {servername}_run_query: Executes a SQL SELECT query against the Excel Online data.

These tools enable Claude to retrieve data, understand the data structure, and answer your questions about the data in Excel Online.

Benefits of Using the UBOS Platform

The UBOS platform offers several advantages for building and deploying AI Agents that integrate with MCP Servers:

• Simplified AI Agent Orchestration: UBOS provides a user-friendly interface for managing and orchestrating AI Agents, simplifying the development and deployment process.
• Enterprise Data Connectivity: UBOS facilitates seamless connectivity between AI Agents and various enterprise data sources, including those accessible through MCP Servers.
• Custom AI Agent Development: UBOS empowers users to build custom AI Agents tailored to their specific needs, leveraging the power of LLMs and data integration.
• Multi-Agent Systems: UBOS supports the creation of Multi-Agent Systems, enabling complex workflows and collaborative problem-solving.
• Improved Business Outcomes: By leveraging UBOS and MCP Servers, businesses can achieve improved business outcomes, such as increased efficiency, better decision-making, and enhanced customer service.

Supported Data Sources

The CData JDBC Drivers support a vast array of data sources, extending the reach of the UBOS platform and enabling integration with virtually any data system. The list of supported sources includes:

Access, Act CRM, Act-On, Active Directory, ActiveCampaign, Acumatica, Adobe Analytics, Adobe Commerce, ADP, Airtable, AlloyDB, Amazon Athena, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Marketplace, Amazon S3, Asana, Authorize.Net, Avalara AvaTax, Avro, Azure Active Directory, Azure Analysis Services, Azure Data Catalog, Azure Data Lake Storage, Azure DevOps, Azure Synapse, Azure Table, Basecamp, BigCommerce, BigQuery, Bing Ads, Bing Search, Bitbucket, Blackbaud FE NXT, Box, Bullhorn CRM, Cassandra, Certinia, Cloudant, CockroachDB, Confluence, Cosmos DB, Couchbase, CouchDB, CSV, Cvent, Databricks, DB2, DocuSign, Dropbox, Dynamics 365, Dynamics 365 Business Central, Dynamics CRM, Dynamics GP, Dynamics NAV, eBay, eBay Analytics, Elasticsearch, Email, EnterpriseDB, Epicor Kinetic, Exact Online, Excel, Excel Online, Facebook, Facebook Ads, FHIR, Freshdesk, FTP, GitHub, Gmail, Google Ad Manager, Google Ads, Google Analytics, Google Calendar, Google Campaign Manager 360, Google Cloud Storage, Google Contacts, Google Data Catalog, Google Directory, Google Drive, Google Search, Google Sheets, Google Spanner, GraphQL, Greenhouse, Greenplum, HarperDB, HBase, HCL Domino, HDFS, Highrise, Hive, HubDB, HubSpot, IBM Cloud Data Engine, IBM Cloud Object Storage, IBM Informix, Impala, Instagram, JDBC-ODBC Bridge, Jira, Jira Assets, Jira Service Management, JSON, Kafka, Kintone, LDAP, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Ads, MailChimp, MariaDB, Marketo, MarkLogic, Microsoft Dataverse, Microsoft Entra ID, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Planner, Microsoft Project, Microsoft Teams, Monday.com, MongoDB, MYOB AccountRight, MySQL, nCino, Neo4J, NetSuite, OData, Odoo, Office 365, Okta, OneNote, Oracle, Oracle Eloqua, Oracle Financials Cloud, Oracle HCM Cloud, Oracle Sales, Oracle SCM, Oracle Service Cloud, Outreach.io, Parquet, Paylocity, PayPal, Phoenix, PingOne, Pinterest, Pipedrive, PostgreSQL, Power BI XMLA, Presto, Quickbase, QuickBooks, QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Time, Raisers Edge NXT, Reckon, Reckon Accounts Hosted, Redis, Redshift, REST, RSS, Sage 200, Sage 300, Sage 50 UK, Sage Cloud Accounting, Sage Intacct, Salesforce, Salesforce Data Cloud, Salesforce Financial Service Cloud, Salesforce Marketing, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, Salesforce Pardot, Salesloft, SAP, SAP Ariba Procurement, SAP Ariba Source, SAP Business One, SAP BusinessObjects BI, SAP ByDesign, SAP Concur, SAP Fieldglass, SAP HANA, SAP HANA XS Advanced, SAP Hybris C4C, SAP Netweaver Gateway, SAP SuccessFactors, SAS Data Sets, SAS xpt, SendGrid, ServiceNow, SFTP, SharePoint, SharePoint Excel Services, ShipStation, Shopify, SingleStore, Slack, Smartsheet, Snapchat Ads, Snowflake, Spark, Splunk, SQL Analysis Services, SQL Server, Square, Stripe, Sugar CRM, SuiteCRM, SurveyMonkey, Sybase, Sybase IQ, Tableau CRM Analytics, Tally, TaxJar, Teradata, Tier1, TigerGraph, Trello, Trino, Twilio, Twitter, Twitter Ads, Veeva CRM, Veeva Vault, Wave Financial, WooCommerce, WordPress, Workday, xBase, Xero, XML, YouTube Analytics, Zendesk, Zoho Books, Zoho Creator, Zoho CRM, Zoho Inventory, Zoho Projects, Zuora, and dozens more.

Conclusion

The Excel Online MCP Server, combined with the power of the UBOS platform, unlocks new possibilities for integrating Excel Online data into AI-driven workflows. By leveraging the capabilities of LLMs and AI Agents, businesses can gain valuable insights, automate tasks, and improve decision-making, driving innovation and achieving tangible business outcomes. Embrace the power of data connectivity and AI integration with UBOS and MCP Servers, and unlock the full potential of your Excel Online data.

With UBOS platform, citizen developers and business users can easily leverage the power of AI Agents connecting with Excel Online data and build custom AI Agents with your LLM model and Multi-Agent Systems to improve business outcomes.