1 Get Started with the Oracle Visual Builder Add-in for Excel
The Oracle Visual Builder Add-in for Excel is an add-in for Microsoft Excel that lets you interact with data from your web application. It integrates Excel spreadsheets with a web application to retrieve, analyze, and edit business data from the application. You download your data to an Excel spreadsheet, work with it, and upload your changes back to the service.
Key Concepts and Terms
Before you use this Excel add-in, it helps to become familiar with these key concepts, components, and terms.
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| Integrated workbook | An Excel workbook configured to work with one or more business objects. |
| Business object | A resource - like a purchase order or invoice - that has fields to hold your application's data. A business object includes a collection path, an item path, a set of fields, and other properties. |
| REST service | A REST-based web service that is associated with an Excel workbook. |
| Layout | A way to display a business object in an Excel worksheet. Each worksheet supports one of two layouts: Table or Form-over-Table. Layouts are created by workbook developers and are visible to data entry users in their workbooks. |
How to Begin with the Oracle Visual Builder Add-in for Excel
After you install the Excel add-in, a new Oracle Visual Builder ribbon tab appears in Microsoft Excel. As a business user who performs data entry, you use the options in this ribbon tab to download and work with a web application's data exposed in a workbook. You can review, modify, and create data in the workbook, then upload your changes to the web application.
The following image shows a worksheet that manages employees: 
Description of the illustration excel-docexample-pub.png
The user has updated one row and created a new row with employee data. These changes have been successfully uploaded to the web application, as indicated by messages in the Status column. The user has also updated data in another row that has yet to be uploaded, as indicated by the Update message in the Change column.
The image also features the Table layout, which is one of the two types of layouts supported in an Excel worksheet. The second type is the Form-over-Table layout, which can be used when a parent-child relationship exists between a parent business object and child business objects in the web application. Each worksheet in the Excel workbook can include one layout.