Excel to SAP R/3

Question

Hi All,
I need to create automation for uploading Excel data onto SAP R/3 using VBA.Have never done this before.Hence a few questions.
1.Once SAP is installed what references do i need to put in the VB Editor under Tools->references in order to connect to SAP and use its objects?
2.Can i achieve uploading of data from Excel using ODCBC.
3.I searched the net for excel to SAP links and found a term called RFC functions.What is RFC.
4.Do we need ABAP coding as well to achieve the same?
If someone can help me with the code for uploading data from excel to SAP,it would be great.Any reply in this regard will be highly appreciated.
Rgds

Answer 1

okay, here we go. As said before, I'll post here a series of comments outlining the use of webservices in the office2003 family to interact with an NW ABAP backend.
Specs: Office2003 with the Webservice Toolkit installed (Gregor's link; read the instructions carefully, especially make sure that you have the MSXML3.0-dll installed too); ABAP 6.40+ (I'll use a 7.0 system here); PHP5.2.0 with soap enabled for some quick tests;
In this first and easiest example we will specify a report within a Word document and download the coding to the Word document.
First we create the webservice on the backend, that is, a function module and let run the webservice wizard over it:
FUNCTION ZTW_READ_REPORT.
""Lokale Schnittstelle:
*"  IMPORTING
*"     VALUE(PROGRAMM_NAME) TYPE  SY-REPID
*"  EXPORTING
*"     VALUE(LINES_OF_REPORT) TYPE  ZTW_TABLE_OF_CODE_LINES
*"     VALUE(ERRORSTRING) TYPE  STRING
  errorstring = ''.
  refresh lines_of_report.
  read report programm_name into lines_of_report.
  if lines_of_report is initial.
    errorstring = 'No such report!'.
  endif.
ENDFUNCTION.
/code
ZTW_TABLE_OF_CODE_LINES is a table based on the structure DDS02.
Very simple, return the coding for a given report name or 'No such report!' in case it does not exist. RFC enable the FM!
Next we run the webservice wizard and create a webservice ZTW_READ_Report and release it for the SOAP runtime.
Now let's get the WSDL URL by selecting the webservice in transaction WSADMIN and clicking the WSDL button. A browser window opens and we copy the URL.
Sidestep: Let's test the service in a PHP script run from the commandline (i.e. without webserver set up).
<?
$login    = "USER";
$password = "PW123";
$proxyhost = '111.222.333.444;
$proxyport = 3128;
// WSDL URL PL5
$wsdlurl = "http://us4484.wdf.sap.corp:50084/sap/bc/srt/rfc/sap/ZTW_READ_REPORT?"
       . "sap-client=201&sap-user=" . $login . "&sap-password=" . $password . "&sap-language=DE&wsdl=1.1";
$programm_name = $argv[1];
try {
     $client = new SoapClient($wsdlurl,
       array(
       'proxy_host'  => $proxyhost,
       'proxy_port'  => $proxyport,
       'login'     => $login,
       'password'    => $password,
       'trace'       => true,
       'exceptions'     => true));
catch(SoapFault $e) {
  echo 'Caught a Constructor Error: - ' . $e->faultstring;
if (isset($client)) {
     try {
       $ra = $client->ZtwReadReport(array(
            'ProgrammName'         => $programm_name
     catch (SoapFault $e) {
       echo 'Caught an Error: - ' . $e->faultstring;
     if ($ra->Errorstring == "") {
     $node = $ra->LinesOfReport;
     foreach ($node as $val1) { //item
       foreach ($val1 as $val2) { //Line
            foreach ($val2 as $val3) { //Value
           echo $val3 . "
     else { echo $ra->Errorstring; }
else { echo 'No client object!'; }
?>
/code
we can run this program from the (win) commandline with
php scriptname.php reportname
/code
(make sure your php is on the path and that you're in the directory where your script is or use the full path name)
Notice the full WSDL URL http://servername:50084/sap/bc/srt/rfc/sap/ZTW_READ_REPORT?sap-client=201&sap-user=USER&sap-password=PW123&sap-language=DE&wsdl=1.1";
We'll need this URL in the next step.
We open a MS Word Document and go to Tools|Macro|VisualBasic Editor. Inside the Editor we go to menu Tools and find an entry 'web service references' (unfortunately I've a German Version of Word at hand at the moment so I've got to guess a little, what the English menu entries might be called). If you do not find such an entry, your SOAP Toolkit installation did not work.
Choosing this we get a dialog which, in the lower left corner allows to select 'webservice URL'. Enable this and enter the URL mentioned before. Click Search. If everything works, we get a description of our webservice in the right hand side box.
Select the webservice found (mark the checkbox) and click 'Add'. This creates some VBA proxy classes representing your webservice.
In the VisualBasic Editor they can be found on the left hand side box under Project|Class Modules. They are
- clsof_Factory_ZTWREADREPORT
- clsw_ZTWREADREPORTService
- struct_D022S
Let's have a look at clsw_ZTWREADREPORTService. In the comments at the start of the script we find an explanation about the originationg WSDL and something on the usage of this proxy.
'Example:
' Dim ExampleVar as New clsws_ZTWREADREPORTService
' debug.print ExampleVar.wsm_ZtwReadReport("Example Input")
/code
Okay, all that's left to do, is to write a little Macro utilizing this proxy. Here we go:
Insert a new module to your VBA project and create a subroutine inside.
Sub read()
Dim errorstring As String
Dim lor As Variant
Dim ExampleVar As New clsws_ZTWREADREPORTService
Dim report_name As String
report_name = InputBox("Report:")
errorstring = ExampleVar.wsm_ZtwReadReport(report_name, lor)
Selection.TypeText Text:="Report" & report_name
Selection.TypeParagraph
For i = LBound(lor) To UBound(lor)
    With Selection
      .Font.Name = "Arial monospaced for SAP"
      .Font.Size = 10
      .TypeText Text:=lor(i).Line & vbCrLf
    End With
Next
End Sub
/code
When executed (Tools|Macro|Macros->read), this macro pops up an input box, allowing you to enter a programme name, then downloads the coding of that report, formats it a little (10 pt Arial monospaced for SAP) and pastes it into our word document.
Voilá, done.
What have we learnt so far:
- installing the SOAP toolkit into Office2003
- testing a webservice using commandline PHP
- creating webservice proxy functions in VBA
- allow dynamic user interaction with the document (input box) and therefore subsequently with the webservice
- calling a webservice from within an Office document (i.e. passing data to the ABAP Service & retrieving data from it)
Basically, that is all you need to start. It works the same in every Office application. The better you know VBA now (especially the trilions of classes within the various applications) the fancier applications you can build. I'll try to chip in some ideas thereof in the next days.
anton
Message was edited by: Anton Wenzelhuemer
Message was edited by: Anton Wenzelhuemer