Excel: Open Order Backlog

What is still owed to customers, with the shortfall already worked out

Release-level demand still owed: the customer, PO and line, release number, the part, release status, the due date, the customer's own due date and an effective due date that falls back to it, ordered and shipped quantity, the open quantity already subtracted, and days past due.

Two details worth knowing. Shipped quantity is read as the decimal column with a fallback to the legacy integer one, because the decimal column is null on every active release in some tenants — reading it alone silently returns an empty backlog. And releases carrying no date at all sort last rather than first, since they are the least actionable rows.

Take the .xlsx link rather than .csv. Part numbers that start with a zero are common, and CSV carries no type information, so Excel would quietly turn 00124735 into 124735. The xlsx feed keeps it as text.

How to connect it

Open the script, click Connect to Excel and copy the link. In Excel, Data → From Web, paste, choose Anonymous, and Load. From then on Refresh All re-runs the query — there is no exported file to hunt down, nothing is scheduled and nothing is emailed around.

How current is it?

This table reads Plex over its ODBC reporting connection, not the live transactional system. That copy can trail production by up to about four hours, so treat the numbers as recent rather than real-time. Refreshing re-runs the query, but it re-runs it against the same reporting copy — it does not reach past it.

That is the right trade for reporting, review meetings and models. Anything that has to be accurate to the minute — shipping a container, releasing a job — belongs in Plex itself, not in a workbook.

Filters

Every input is an optional URL query parameter on the link, so one script serves a whole team: two sheets can be the same feed with different values. For example ?customer=VALUE&part_no=VALUE.

What this installs

The Excel Data - Open Order Backlog script and one saved SQL query it runs on. The SQL lives in the SQL editor, so a column you want added is an edit in one place that every workbook picks up on its next refresh. The table has 21 columns as shipped, and no row cap — a cap would truncate silently and the workbook would look complete.

What you need

One ODBC credential pointed at your Plex reporting connection. The install wizard asks for it once and applies it to the query. If you do not have one yet, create it first in Script Engine → Credentials with type odbc.