Embed InLoox Data in Excel with OData

With the InLoox OData API, you can integrate data from the InLoox database directly into Excel as a data source using Microsoft Power Query. This enables live data analysis and reporting without manual exports.

Create Personal Access Token

Before connecting Excel to InLoox, you need to create a Personal Access Token (PAT) for authentication.

1. In InLoox, go to My Profile.
2. Open the Personal Access Tokens (PAT) tab.

Prerequisites

You need the permission Allow authentication via personal access token, which must be granted by your InLoox admin. After activating this permission, it may take up to 1 hour to take effect due to performance caching.

3. Click New Token.
4. Enter a meaningful name in the dialog.
5. Select the account whose data you want to access.

6. Save the token in a secure location — you will need it later.

Important

A Personal Access Token is equivalent to a login and password and should be protected accordingly. If shared, it can be used with the InLoox API to gain read and write access to data in InLoox.

We strongly recommend creating a new user with the Read-Only access type specifically for retrieving data via PAT token. Configure permissions for this user to grant access only to necessary data.

Excel File Security

If you follow this guide, the Excel file will contain the token. If you share the Excel file, remove the token beforehand to protect your data.

Connect InLoox OData to Power Query in Excel

Power Query is a technology embedded in Excel that allows you to import external data sources into Excel tables.

1. In Excel, go to the Data tab.
2. Open the Get Data dropdown menu.
3. Select From Other Sources, then Blank Query.

This opens the Power Query Editor in a new window.

4. Open the Advanced Editor.

5. Enter the following query, replacing [YOUR_PAT_TOKEN] with your Personal Access Token:

let
    headers = [#"x-api-key" = "[YOUR_PAT_TOKEN]"],
    Source = OData.Feed("https://app.inloox.com/api/odata/Project", headers)
in
    Source

Query explanation:

• YOUR_PAT_TOKEN — Your Personal Access Token
• OData.Feed — The URL of your InLoox account, including the OData API path and an API object (in this example, the list of all projects)
• If you are using InLoox Self-Hosted on your own server, enter the corresponding URL defined by your organization, e.g., https://inloox.mycompany.com/api/v1/odata/Project

6. You will be prompted to specify how the connection to the InLoox API should be established. Click Edit Credentials.

7. Select Anonymous with the level set to https://app.inloox.com/ or the corresponding URL for your InLoox Self-Hosted server.

8. Click Connect.

A preview of your data will be loaded.

9. Click Close & Load in the top left to exit the Power Query Editor and import the queried data into a new Excel table.

warning

Depending on the size of your InLoox database, this query may load a very large amount of data. Apply filters to limit your query and retrieve only the data relevant to your use case. For more information, refer to Microsoft's documentation: Filter data (Power Query).

Now you can analyze your InLoox data directly in Excel.

Further Information

InLoox OData API

• InLoox OData API Example Project on GitHub
• InLoox OData API Definition (Swagger)

Power Query

• About Power Query in Excel (Microsoft Support)
• Power Query for Excel Help (Microsoft Support)