Introducing the Databricks Excel add-in for business users

Summary

Databricks has introduced the Excel Add-in, now in public preview, to let business users import and analyze lakehouse data directly in Excel without writing SQL or configuring ODBC drivers. Built on Databricks SQL and Unity Catalog, it provides point-and-click access to tables and metric views, native Excel pivot tables, refreshable results, reusable Workspace queries, and optional saved SQL. Metric views let data teams define business semantics once while Unity Catalog centrally manages permissions and controls, helping avoid duplicated logic and metric drift. The preview supports selecting tables and metric views, parameterized custom functions, manual refreshes, pivot-table filtering, query reuse, and workspace changes; scheduled refresh, AI integrations, and other usability improvements are planned next.

Context

Business users often rely on Excel, while complete business data resides in a lakehouse. Existing access can require manual ODBC configuration, multi-step setup, IT support, duplicated datasets, and separate semantics layers, resulting in outdated extracts and workarounds around the data platform.

Approach / What changed

The Databricks Excel Add-in connects Excel directly to governed Databricks data through Databricks SQL and Unity Catalog. It uses Unity Catalog tables and metric views, point-and-click selection, native pivot tables, refreshable results, reusable Workspace queries, and centrally managed permissions and definitions.

Takeaways

• The public preview supports selecting Unity Catalog tables and metric views, executing custom functions with parameters, manually refreshing results, creating and filtering Excel pivot tables, reusing Workspace queries, and changing workspaces.
• Unity Catalog metric views allow data teams to define business semantics and standardized KPIs once, while permissions, controls, and access remain centrally managed.
• The add-in can be installed from the Microsoft Office Marketplace or Databricks documentation, deployed through the Microsoft 365 admin center, or installed individually for Excel on the web, Windows, or macOS with appropriate permissions.

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