Write back to EXcel Data Source

[Former Member]

Hello Everyone,

I have been working on a SAP WEBI project and a question was raised. I thought I should confirm before I present the business plan.

I have a excel data source on which I have created the report. Now the query was raised from the business end whether its possible to write it back to Excel Data source through WEBI report and update. As per my knowledge and research SAP WEBI is a pull toll rather than push.

However if it is possible., please do guide me. Even if you have the workaround that will be perfect as well.

Regards,

Waqas.

[nscheaffer · Accepted solution]

This is certainly possible, but there are quite a few things that could potentially cause problems for you. I'll try to walk you through it.

1. Place the spreadsheet in a network location to which both you and the user whose password doesn't expire which will be used when scheduling this report have access. If it is against your company security policy have passwords that don't expire you will just have to update the schedule with the new password whenever it changes.
   
   You cannot base your WebI report on spreadsheet that has been uploaded into the BI Launchpad as a Local Document as described here...
   
   
   There reason is that there is no way that I know of for WebI to update that spreadsheet that has been uploaded as a local document.
   
   
2. You will need to use the Rich Desktop Client to build your WebI report because that is the only way that I know of to build a report based on a spreadsheet on your network.
3. You need to be sure that everything is the same about the structure of the report results so that you can update your source spreadsheet. That includes the filename, column names, sheet name and maybe even the column order.
4. By default the first sheet in your spreadsheet will be called "Sheet1" and the first tab in your WebI document (report) will be "Report 1". Whatever you do they need to be the same. So either rename the first sheet in your spreadsheet to "Report 1" or rename the first tab in your WebI report to "Sheet1". I have named the sheet and report tabs both "Sheet1" (see screenshots below).
   
   
   
   You see I have a filter in the WebI report defined as "ID >= 5".
5. Be sure to align your table using Relative Position (0, 0) so that there are no blank rows or columns in the results as the get exported to Excel.
   
   
6. The final step is to schedule the report with the Format set to "Microsoft Excel" and the Destination set to "File System" and set the directory and file name (choose "Use Specific Name") to overwrite the source file.
   
   
   
   
7. If I open the Excel spreadsheet which is both my source and results and refresh the WebI report you can see that the data has been reduced to where "ID >= 5" even though the report filter has been removed (see screenshots below).
   
   
   

Hopefully that addresses your question and will work for you.

Noel

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello Noel,

Thanks for sharing the details as I was not aware of this.

Thank you for sharing.

Regards

Niraj

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks Noel,

Thanks a lot for the support. I will include this in the business plan. Thanks

[nscheaffer · Accepted solution]

Can you mark my answer as correct?

Thanks,

Noel