How to export Pac Control Variables into Excel through Groov Epic?

Hello all, I am trying to parse PAC Control data into Excel using a Groov Epic. Has anyone done this?

I was able to generate a URL via Swagger and can read the data in a web browser, but I am having a lot of difficulties pulling the data into Excel.

I’ve tried using the Excel Spreadsheet from this example and no luck (Opto22 - SNAP PAC RESTful API to Excel Spreadsheet Example). I put in my IP address and credentials and when I try to look for data I get an error that says:
“System Error: The certificate authority is invalid or incorrect”

I’ve also tried pulling it directly in a blank Excel Spreadsheet using the Data tab, and then “From Web” but that does not work either.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as well as an instructional if available.

Welcome to the forums JR.

The example we provide (the one you link to) is for a PAC Controller, not an EPIC.
EPIC uses https connections so you need to get the server/client certificates sorted. I am really not sure how you would go about that in Excel (it worked in your browser via the URL because the browser accepted the EPICs self signed certificate and thus made the https connection).

If you just want data in Excel, I would use a PAC Control file comm handle to write a CSV file to the EPICs file area and then tell Excel to pull the CSV file from the EPIC.
If you are looking for a live stream of data from the EPIC into Excel, I will need to take a pause and think about it some.

Depending on how many tags you want to move from the strategy to Excel, you might be able to use groov View as a middle man for something a bit more seamless.

Here is our prebuilt example on doing that:
https://www.opto22.com/support/resources-tools/downloads/2251_logging_groov_data_to_excel-zip

Thanks for the quick response Ben. How do you authorize the API on this command to get the data - I assume this will work in Excel?

Regarding a live stream of data from Epic into Excel, we would like that if at all possible.

I think rather than hacking a solution together, it would be much better to fix the SSL issue.
I did some Google foo and there seems to be some solid results for getting Excel to play nice with HTTPS connections.
One place to start is our developer guide for getting your own certificate authority set up:
http://developer.opto22.com/epicdev/browserssl/

Spend the time getting the groov EPIC API working with Excel, life will be much smoother going forward.

@jrbertha Just chatted with @bensonh about your Excel API call, he has a good ‘test’…
If when you hit the EPIC with your browser (groov Manage for example) you should see a solid lock icon on the URL bar, if not, Excel will not work.
If you do have a solid lock icon that means your browser trusts the EPIC, but, you may have only added the EPICs SSL cert to your browser trust store. In order for Excel to connect, you need to be sure to add the EPIC cert to your PC trust store.

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I appreciate all the help and insight. I do not have a solid lock in either Chrome or Firefox - Chrome says not secure and Firefox says “a security exception has been added for this site”

I’ll do some more digging around, appreciate the help