Connecting Sipina and Excel using OLE
The connection between a data mining tool and Excel (and more generally spreadsheet) is a very important issue. We had addressed many times this topic in our tutorials. With hindsight, I think the solution based on add-ins for Excel is the best one, both for SIPINA and for TANAGRA . It is simple, reliable and highly efficient. It does not require developing specific versions. The connection with Excel is a simple additional functionality of the standard distribution. Prior to reaching this solution, we had explored different trails. In this tutorial, we present the XL-SIPINA software based on Microsoft's OLE technology. At the opposite of the add-in solution, this version of SIPINA chooses to embed Excel into the Data Mining tool. The system works rather well. Nevertheless, it has finally been dropped for two reasons: (1) we were forced to compile special versions that work only if Excel is installed on the user's machine; (2) the transferring time between Excel and Sipina usi...