Some ODBC client programs ship with their own ODBC driver managers, as opposed to the open-source unixODBC. For example, Informatica, OBIEE, and SAS use the DataDirect driver manager. See Using from Tools for application-specific configuration.

To avoid incompatibilities between unixODBC and your ODBC client application's ODBC driver manager, we would recommend uninstalling unixODBC before configuring the driver.

Set the Driver Encoding

The CData ODBC driver also supports the ODBC environment attributes SQL_ATTR_APP_UNICODE_TYPE and SQL_ATTR_DRIVER_UNICODE_TYPE, which the DataDirect ODBC Driver Manager uses to automatically set the encoding depending on what the client applications expects. If those attributes are supported by the client application, character encoding is defined automatically. If those attribute aren't specified, the encoding can be set manually, in '/opt/cdata/cdata-odbc-driver-for-excelonline/lib/cdata.odbc.excelonline.ini'. By default, the DataDirect Driver Manager uses UTF-8:

[Driver]
DriverManagerEncoding=UTF-8

Register the Driver

In the driver configuration file, "odbcinst.ini", register the driver name. Note that this step is not required for SAS and Informatica.

The location of this file may depend on your installation. Some applications search environment variables for the ODBC configuration files, such as $ODBCHOME.

[CData ODBC Driver for ExcelOnline]
Driver=/opt/cdata/cdata-odbc-driver-for-excelonline/lib/libexcelonlineodbc.x64.so
Description=CData ODBC Driver for ExcelOnline 2024

Configure the DSN

In the DSN configuration file, "odbc.ini", make sure to specify the driver library by its full path, as opposed to the driver name like with unixODBC. You can then enter the other connection properties required by the specific data source.

The location of this file may depend on your installation. Some applications search environment variables for the ODBC configuration files, such as $ODBCHOME.

[CData ExcelOnline Source]
Driver=/opt/cdata/cdata-odbc-driver-for-excelonline/lib/libexcelonlineodbc.x64.so