Way to tell in request from Excel that a user is testing a connection versus downloading feed?

Question

I'm creating a custom data feed for use in Excel PowerPivot, and I'm wondering if there is any difference between Excel's request to read the feed when it's requesting to test a connection or simply connecting to it.

So step 1 you connect to a data feed. At that Dialog a user can click "Test Connection" - this calls out to the feed and downloads the full payload.

When the user clicks next PowerPivot again connects to the data feed getting the full payload to show the source tables avaliable. The user then has the option to preview & filter which hits the feed not once, but twice.

Then when the user finally clicks Finish, it downloads the full payload.

Is there anyway to tell the difference between these requests? Ideally i'd like to send a smaller payload on these chatty "does this service work" requests; and only send the full payload when the user truly imports the data.

I don't see off hand anything different in the request though.

Answer 1

Anyone have any ideas on this?