DevOps, CI/CD and Automation

I apologize if this is an incorrect forum to post this question.

I am trying to use MS Excel to retrieve data from Oracle database. My pc has oracle client 11g installed. I dont have problem connecting to Oracle DB from sqlplus, Oracle Forms or Discoverer. However I can't connect from Excel. This is how I try in Excel.

Start Excel ---> Data --> Import External Data --> New Database Query

At this point, a Data Source window pops up and i would give it a name for the data source, and pick the driver - Microsoft ODBC for Oracle - this is the only appropriate driver in this scenario. then i click 'Connect' and a login screen pops up. I enter my Oracle username and password and server (which is my database service name). Unfortunately, I am getting ORA-12560 error - TNS Protocol adpater error.

i wonder why I get this error from Excel. Where is Excel looking for the database service name? is it not looking at tnsnames.ora file in my Oracle client 11g?

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Wee.