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Excel plugin auto update

Unfortunately the Excel plugin has no auto refresh function (We use it for dashboards). I'd like data to update each hour.

Has anyone written a macro for this they'd like to share?

Peter Fjelsten Answered

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Sorry, Excel macros are over my head. Would love to see if anyone has developed this because we could use it internally as well ;)

Josh Santos 0 votes
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Hi Peter,

 

Excel itself is not designed to be run unattended. It's an interactive tool that can come up with blocking messages. The Excel add-in itself may also come up with pop up errors. 

So if you have a mission critical process, don't rely on Excel for auto updates, as the process may stop without notice.

You're better off developing a service that uses the API directly and handles failures properly.

 You can automate the Excel add-in, particularly with VBA Macors. There's some documentation on this in http://usermanual.clarizen.com/#16-1-1-4-excel-add-in-change-log 

One could write a macro that refreshes a report, saves it and  repeats the process. (no, we don't have a sample report with these). There's also a feature of automatically refreshing a report when the Excel file loads, which can be a part of the solution.

so** As long as someone it watching and takes care if something is stopped**, you could provide periodic automatic refresh.

 BTW, Macros could be problematic as they are considered a security issue, and thus are subject to many limitations by Excel, depending on particular installations and settings.

 

Best Regards,

Tamir Avital

Customer Success Manager

Tamir Avital 0 votes
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I know about the limitations of Excel but it's a quick and dirty way of getting the job done. :-)

Peter Fjelsten 0 votes
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