Using VBA in TM1Web

[mabr]

Hello guys,

I tried to upload an Excel report which uses VBA Code (.xlsm) to TM1Web. As soon as I open the report, it won´t show the buttons I configured to trigger my VBA-Code. In general: Is it possible to use VBA in an uploaded TM1Web Report? If yes, what could be the problem in this case?

I found an IBM Support page where exactly this case should be solved, but I can´t find the configuration menus for this on my Windows 10 Machine: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/actio ... readsheets

Best regards

[Alan Kirk]

Hello guys,

I tried to upload an Excel report which uses VBA Code (.xlsm) to TM1Web. As soon as I open the report, it won´t show the buttons I configured to trigger my VBA-Code. In general: Is it possible to use VBA in an uploaded TM1Web Report? If yes, what could be the problem in this case?

I found an IBM Support page where exactly this case should be solved, but I can´t find the configuration menus for this on my Windows 10 Machine: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/actio ... readsheets

That is a bloody awful article because it doesn't mention a version[1], but it would be 9.5.2 at the LATEST. I know that because it refers to IIS as the Web server and in version 10 (I'm pretty sure it was) they changed it to Apache/Tomcat so that Linux users weren't bound to using a Windows server just to run TM1 Web. (Later changing it to Websphere Liberty, but that's not germane.)

Back in the 9.5.2 days Web worked by launching hidden sessions of Excel. (And yes it was as awful as it sounds. I used to have to clean up more dead Excel sessions than there were bodies after a Napoleonic era battle.)

From that article it looks like action buttons USED to use VBA in the background BUT there are two things to be very clear about:
* MODERN action buttons have no connection to VBA at all. Excel and VBA have not been needed on the Web server for years; and
* Although VBA was verrrry briefly supported in TM1 Web in the earliest 8.0 versions, it never worked well and was quickly abandoned.

The headline: There is NO support for VBA in TM1 Web. None. Zero. Niente. Even back in the days mentioned in that article, it would have been for the back end ONLY. Macro enabled workbooks have not worked - have never worked - in Web save for that brief version 8.0 flirtation. The only automation options you have are clever use of active form design, and action buttons.

It may not be what you wanted to hear, but it's the reality.
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[1] Belated edit: For anyone who's thinking "Wait, what?? Yeah it does!", I answered this question on my mobile, and on my mobile version of Chrome the right hand side bar which shows the version (9.5.2, as I surmised above) did not appear. I found that it could be forced to appear if I toggled the page to "Desktop View". Which, of course, should not be necessary on a well designed web site. But hey, it's IBM...

[mabr]

Hello Alan,

it´s too bad that TM1 Web doesn´t support VBA coding in Excel. Nevertheless thank you for your Explanation.

Best regards,

[orlando]

Hello Alan,

it´s too bad that TM1 Web doesn´t support VBA coding in Excel. Nevertheless thank you for your Explanation.

Best regards,

That is indeed the case, but TM1 Web will not be around for that long. As with Perspectives, IBM is doing everything it can to kill it.

[Alan Kirk]

Hello Alan,

it´s too bad that TM1 Web doesn´t support VBA coding in Excel. Nevertheless thank you for your Explanation.

Best regards,

That is indeed the case, but TM1 Web will not be around for that long. As with Perspectives, IBM is doing everything it can to kill it.

I wouldn't count on that.

Oh, I agree with you entirely that it's what they would like to do. But to get people to move off the existing software, IBM would need to offer them something that is actually better, rather than just steaming pieces of digital cr@p. This is something that - in my view - they haven't merely failed to do. Rather, it seems to me that they are singularly incapable of doing it.

We only need ask why so many people cling so tenaciously to Perspectives which, let's be blunt, is well past its prime. The same will be true of Web, I believe.

[mabr]

I wouldn't count on that.

Oh, I agree with you entirely that it's what they would like to do. But to get people to move off the existing software, IBM would need to offer them something that is actually better, rather than just steaming pieces of digital cr@p. This is something that - in my view - they haven't merely failed to do. Rather, it seems to me that they are singularly incapable of doing it.

We only need ask why so many people cling so tenaciously to Perspectives which, let's be blunt, is well past its prime. The same will be true of Web, I believe.

But what about PAW, do you think it is capable of replacing those tools?