Excel and dotnet connector

[Former Member]

Hi All,

I'm a newbie to this area of SAP (I'm a functional consultant) but I've been researching as much as I can and just want to confirm some basic questions. I've managed to logon to SAP, call a RFC as well as call a bapi all from VS2005 express edition as well as doing this from VBA in excel.

It seems to me that I've been using SAP automation activeX type objects to be able to do this if I'm sifting through all the terminology correctly! I don't remember ever adding any additional components to enable this. I obviously have SAP GUI already though.

I would like to enhance my knowledge in the area of creating applications (specifically to be run from Excel) and want to ensure that I start at the right place.

Am I correct in saying that the easiest/quickest way to do this is to create these in VS2003 professional (this one works with the latest dotnet connector) using dotnet connector 2.0.1?

If so I'm not sure how I will run the application I create in VS2003 from Excel but I'll get there. I just need to know that VS2003 professional and dotnet connector is the way to go or do I just carry on with the activeX type objects I've succeeded with so far?

It looks to me like this is SAP's development path.

Thanks in advance,

Grant.

[Former Member]

Thanks Jitesh,

I'm leaning towards option 3 so far as performance will be very important. I know permissions on the user calling the RFC could be a bit of an issue though. I will have to work out exactly what permissions this user would need. I also think from a product perspective it would then be enabled both in Excel 2003 and Excel 2007.

Ideally I would like to just install this product as an add on in Excel and the customer does not need to do anything else but I suppose they will need at least the GUI? Because I'm trying to make it as easy as possible I tend to avoid the webservice option as I guess those would lead to additional set up on their side? I wouldn't think these are already available lets say in a standard NW 2004s installation or am I incorrect??

Regards,

Grant.

[Former Member]

Hi Grant,

>>Ideally I would like to just install this product as an add on in Excel and the customer does not need to do anything else but I suppose they will need at least the GUI?

No, the user does not need the GUI installed either for NCo or pure webservice based solutions (SOAP based).

You can directly consume webservices of SAP WAS 6.20 or higer (which I guess is part of NW2004s installation) from your Excel VBA.

Regards.

[Former Member]

Thanks again for your help guys.

Cheers,

Grant.

[Former Member]

Hi Grant,

one way to go is for sure using VS 2003 and the NCo. You could also use Visual Studio Tools for Office and Visual Studio 2005 for developing Office applications which connect to SAP. For doing this you can use the Web Services SAP offers since Web Application Server 6.20. You can find a whitepaper and code examples at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb498189.aspx. Another way is to use VS 2003 for developing proxies which are then used in VS 2005 and VSTO. If you want to build a reporting solution using Excel there are also other ways for connecting to SAP. For which version of Office do you want to develop your solution and to which SAP releases do you want to connect?

Thanks,

- Juergen

[Former Member]

Hi Juergen,

Thanks so much for the excellent response. I like the look of the OBA starter kit with VSTO 2005 so I'll investigate that one further. It looks to me like the user would have to have Excel 2007 at least though?

I'll also see what further info I can find on developing proxies. I've read a bit about it but don't understand it as yet. From what I can gather it seems to be the way to provide the link between NCo and SAP? (I think I read somewhere that if you can get this to work you could link NCo 2.0.1 with VS 2005 (possibly even express edition?) even though in the release notes it is for VS2003 professional and higher.

I was thinking along the lines of developing for Office 2003 and ERP 6.0 as I'm not sure how many people out there have migrated to Office 2007 yet. I don't want to be short sighted though so perhaps it's better to go the OBA route.

You mentioned that perhaps there are other ways for connecting Excel and SAP?

Kind regards,

Grant.

[Former Member]

Hi Grant,

Yes, you are right. User need to have Office 2007 applications in case of OBA.

However there are various other ways to connect to SAP system from Excel -

1. You can use ActiveX components (As you have already done).

2. If you have WAS 6.20 or higher you can expose the web services and can

consume from Excel by writing your own proxy classes (SOAP communication).

3. You can use NCo and VS2003 to communicate with SAP system (RFC based communication). And then compile the classes into .NET dll and can use from Excel by adding reference (or expose them as .NET webservices)

4. NCo is not directly supported by VS2005. But the workaround is, create the proxies using VS2003 and use the compiled DLL in VS2005 application.

Well to chose which way to go depends upon the application requirement.

For example- Point 2 is the most flexible way. As it is SOAP based communication so the enterprise security policies are not an issue. But on the other side, it requires you to write your own proxy classes to consume webservices. And performance will be little less than RFC based communications.

Point 3- RFC based communication which means performance would be good. Development time is less. But at the same point of time you would have to ensure you have enough permissions to execute the call from client application to SAP system.

Do write back if you need any more information.

Regards.