Control spreadsheet writeback in Databricks with admin setting

Writing data from spreadsheets to Unity Catalog is now controlled by a centralized workspace security toggle. This feature prevents unauthorized spreadsheet data ingestion into tables.

Use cases

Imagine you need to ensure that business analysts do not publish un governed spreadsheet data into company tables. With this setting, you can:

• Globally block or allow data ingestion from Excel and Google Sheets.
• Ensure only authorized workspaces accept spreadsheet writebacks.

How to use

To enable the setting in the admin panel:

1. Click your username in the upper-right corner of the Databricks workspace.
2. Select Settings and click Security in the sidebar.
3. Locate and enable the Allow spreadsheet writeback option.

Limitations and requirements

• Requires workspace admin privileges to enable the setting.
• Excel data writeback supports SQL warehouses only (all-purpose compute is not supported).
• The operation only supports creating new tables or completely overwriting existing tables (table-level writes), with no support for row-level updates.