1 Introduction to Oracle Visual Builder Add-in for Excel
Oracle Visual Builder Add-in for Excel integrates Excel spreadsheets with your 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. |
Installation
Install the latest version of Oracle Visual Builder Add-in for Excel available from the Downloads page on Oracle.com.
Before you begin, ensure that your environment meets the requirements for installation. See Software Dependencies and Supported Platforms in Developing Integrated Spreadsheets Using Oracle Visual Builder Add-in for Excel for more details.
When you are ready, install the add-in, as described in Install Oracle Visual Builder Add-in for Excel.
Next Steps
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.
This image shows a worksheet that manages employees: 
Description of the illustration excel-docexample-pub.png
The user has updated two rows 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.