OIW Frontend for Microsoft Excel (SAP Library - SAP Open Information Warehouse)

OIW Frontend for Microsoft Excel

The OIW Frontend for Microsoft Excel is implemented in the Add-in SAPOIW. When this add-in is opened, either manually or automatically using the add-in manager, the OIW Frontend becomes active in Microsoft Excel. This is indicated by the following:

the "SAP Open Information Warehouse" tool bar is displayed, and

the corresponding menu entries appear in Excel’s Data menu.

The OIW Frontend for Excel serves two purposes:

You can use the OIW Frontend tool bar or the menu options to embed new OIW queries in Microsoft Excel worksheets as Array Functions and to change existing embedded queries.

When calculating the embedded array functions, the OIW Frontend automatically tries to call the corresponding OIW queries in the R/3 System. The results of these queries then appear as values of the array functions in the Excel worksheet.

Since the queries are updated whenever the Excel "recalculation" function is executed, you can be sure that your data is consistent as long as the automatic calculation mode is selected in Excel and the OIW add-in is active.

For example, you could store worksheets with query definitions so that the R/3 data is automatically updated as soon as you open the worksheets again. Another option is to make the OIW queries dependent on selection values that are obtained from the cells of the Excel worksheet. If you change the values in these selection cells, then the next time that the Excel functions are calculated they will automatically access the current data in the R/3 System. Up-to-date data, corresponding to the modified selection values, will then be displayed in the worksheet. This technique can be used to simulate Drill-Down functionality in Excel worksheets.

Note