Add-Ins Query - Unattended

No, there is not a way to implement unattended "lights-out" automation using Excel AddIns. In fact, you can't even use VBA to control the Addins (beyond invoking them). Depending on your requirements, you can use some scripting or programming environment to do something similar via DME/Data queries...

Thanks for your reply, John. I suspected that was the answer I was going to receive. Why would Lawson want to make things easier when we can do it the old fashioned way?

It's pretty sad, I think. I remember talking to the developer of the Addins a few years ago and when I asked him why they didn't VBA-enable them, his response was "that's a great idea--we didn't even think about that!"!!

I hear you, John. Pretty sad indeed. But wait, here's another great idea. I could submit an Enhancement Request. No, maybe not. I might have to wait another year or so to get a final answer. I did that once and as a result am discouraged from ever doing it again. I had the full support of everyone (fellow users) I ever talked to about it except from the people whose opinion counted the most, Lawson. 

If you have the talent to write lights-out scripting, why are you still using add-ins? There are a lot of tools much more well suited to that task in the market place.

Hey, k-rock, thanks for jumping on board. It was not my intention nor did I ever mean to convey the implication that I had enough talent to write as you say, lights-out scripting, because if that were the case I would be doing something sufficiently different than what I am doing now. Be that as it may. The point I was trying to make was that Lawson may not always seem to have what I perceive to be the user community's best interest in mind despite statements to the contrary. Sometimes Lawson appears to do what's best for Lawson and there's nothing wrong with that in a pure business context. Why reach out to the user community and ask for suggestions to improve the product or service but then turn around and make it a significant challenge to opt in toward that regard?

Would you be able to use Process Flow Integrator for this?   I am hoping to try this once I upgrade later this year....

 

 

<!-- Converted from text/plain format -->

Yes, absolutely.
John Henley

I got around the problem of not being able to automate an Add-ins query by taking the DME web query that the Query Wizard generates, and automating it in a few ways.

I've embedded it into Excel VB, in perl, in javascript (like Lawson portal), and in php.

You just need to set your query up once in the Query wizard, then copy the DME web query URL, and use that in all those other programming environments.  Basically, because it really is just a web call, almost every single programming language supports calling it and processing the output.

I wrote up how to do it in perl in a post on my website:
Lawson reporting using DME from perl

Its probably more useful to do it from Excel VBA since that seems like its more handy for people to run.  Of course, I can't really 100% automate an Excel solution, it requires people to open the spreadsheet up and click a button, but after that, the whole DME query and processing can be automated.  Usually is good enough in most cases.  But if you are looking for 100% automation, then a real programming language like perl is likely your answer.

And don't think that because you have Windows, that you can't run perl.  My desktop is Windows, and I run perl to automate a bunch of DME queries.

Jeremy Zerr
Lawson Reporting

Sorry to jump in so late, but I'm researching whether the excel addin-upload to run the same time everyday without human intervention. 

I have been asked to run an upload that was run periodically to now run run into HR11 everyday.

It doesn't sound like this is an attainable goal.  If it is, is there a recomended method.

Thanks