"Unknown Data Type" connecting Athena in MSQuery

Question

I've set up an ODBC connection with Athena. When connecting from excel:

The connection works fine when using Get Data / From Other Sources / ODBC. I get access to the tables and data in Athena.

The problem is when using Get Data / From Other Sources / MSQuery. Here, I get an error of "Unknown data type" before getting access to the tables.

Any ideas how to resolve would be appreciated

Answer

Hello,

we can use the ODBC connection to connect to Amazon Athena from third-party SQL client tools and applications. Having said that, I suspect from the Microsoft documentation - If the external database that you want to access is not supported by the ODBC drivers that are installed with Microsoft Query, then you need to obtain and install a Microsoft Office-compatible ODBC driver from a third-party vendor, such as the manufacturer of the database. Contact the database vendor for installation instructions.

check this - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-microsoft-query-to-retrieve-external-data-42a2ea18-44d9-40b3-9c38-4c62f252da2e

Hence while connecting it would be appropriate to use  From Other Sources / ODBC to athena rather than directly doing it from / From Other Sources / MSQuery which the driver might not be compatible with.

Thank you!

References:
[1]https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-microsoft-query-to-retrieve-external-data-42a2ea18-44d9-40b3-9c38-4c62f252da2e - External docs
[2]https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/connecting-athena-through-excel-philip-vago -External docs

"Unknown Data Type" connecting Athena in MSQuery

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