Excel: Shipment History
Twelve months of shipped lines with on-time performance built in
Overview
Twelve months of shipped lines with on-time performance built in
One row per shipped line in the last twelve months: shipper number and ship date, shipper status, the customer, the part, quantity, price and extended price, net and gross weight, container count, carrier, tracking and trailer numbers, master BOL, the release due date, days late already subtracted, and the delivery date.
Putting the due date next to the ship date is the whole point — on-time performance becomes a pivot rather than a second query joined by hand.
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.
| Input | What it does |
|---|---|
customer | substring match on Customer Code or Customer Name |
part_no | substring match on Part No or Part Name |
days | narrow the window to the last N days |
late_only | true = keep only lines that shipped after the due date |
max_rows | keep only the first N rows |
What this installs
The Excel Data - Shipment History 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.
What's Included
Use Cases
- Build an on-time delivery scorecard you refresh in place
- Answer a customer's shipment query without opening Plex
- Track freight and carrier mix over a rolling year
- Pull the late shipments for a corrective-action review
Benefits
- Re-queries the source on refresh instead of holding an emailed copy
- Days late is already computed against the release due date
- Narrow the window per sheet with ?days=
- The .xlsx feed keeps leading zeros that CSV destroys
Configuration Steps
After installation, you'll configure:
- Plex ODBC connection