SQL Server includes two Transact-SQL functions that can return data from OLE DB data sources such as the UNICOM Intelligence OLE DB Provider. You can use these functions to access the flat (Virtual tables) view of a UNICOM Intelligence data source from any third party application that can execute a query on a SQL Server database.

For example, from Microsoft Excel, you could use a SQL Server query to import the response data from a UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer database. Because the VDATA virtual table can be referenced in a query in the same way as any SQL table, you could also import the result of joining the VDATA table with the sample table for the survey.

Making your UNICOM Intelligence data source accessible through SQL Server also makes it possible to use Microsoft Analysis Services (formerly known as Microsoft OLAP Services) to analyze your survey data.

The Transact-SQL functions that can be used to access UNICOM Intelligence data are:

This function is used to query linked servers, which are OLE DB data sources. Therefore, you must first define a linked server in SQL Server for each UNICOM Intelligence data source that you want to query. This approach delivers the best performance, which may be a consideration if your data sources contain large volumes of data. However, it is not possible to return category names instead of category values by using linked servers. For more information, see Using linked servers.

This function does not require linked servers to query OLE DB data sources, but performs less well in comparison to the OPENQUERY function. However, this is the only approach that can return category names instead of category values. For more information, see Using the OPENDATASOURCE function.

For more information about how the UNICOM Intelligence OLE DB Provider returns categorical variables to third party applications, see Categorical variables.