Access Equivalent to Excel Web Query?

I am writing to get suggestions on populating a database table from web data. For example, if I wanted to get stock price information or sports stats or something, what would be a good way to go about it? With Excel, I can use the Web Query feature for data.... but what is the equivalent in Access 2010?

Access 2010 introduced support for Data Service which in theory would do what you just described, provide you a table that represent data populated by a web service. Unfortunately, this feature involves a setup with SharePoint to provide the interface to the web service (well, I suppose if the web service you mentioned already exposes the same interface, you could connect to it directly but I think the likelihood of such web service available is low compared to more common protocols such as SOAP or REST).

Since the Excel Web Query already does what you need, surely you could get this via Access automating Excel, no?

I am looking for something that will be faster and not have intermediary steps. Using Excel Web Queries, I would have to store the information first into an Excel file then push it to Access. I would rather have it pushed directly to temp tables in the database.

Coach3131 said:

I am looking for something that will be faster and not have intermediary steps. Using Excel Web Queries, I would have to store the information first into an Excel file then push it to Access. I would rather have it pushed directly to temp tables in the database.

Click to expand...

Sure, but you can do all this from a single button in Access. The user need not know that Excel is being used in the background.

I agree that it will be slower the importing directly to Access but how much data are you going to pull? Will the user really notice?

Chris

Or you can try using a product like Automation Anywhere, which can scrape web data from websites on a scheduled basis and place that data into a database or anywhere else. Will even pull from multi-layer pages.
Just google it and go to the web data extraction page for more info.

Hope this helps.
TomV