ALV vs Excel

[Former Member]

hi mates,

can anybody eloborate advantages of using excel over alv in bps input & output layouts? (ours is bi-bps environment)

what are prerequisites for using excel as layout environment?

if we want to use excel, any particular release(excel) relese mandatory? what about macros in excel?

regrds,.

RAJU

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

BPS Users will prefer Excel over ALV for following reasons,

1. Manual input may involve lot of records and hence users may want to copy from exisiting excel sheets into BPS.

2.Use of Macros

Also those involved in planning will realise ALV to be difficult compared to working in Excel.

You can include Excel based layouts in both planning folders and Web Applications.

Hope this helps.

-Raga

[Former Member]

Hi,

the below link give you info. on prerequisites for using layout and macros in excel

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/aa/f73e4045796913e10000000a1550b0/content.htm

[Former Member]

Hi,

Take a look in note 632333 "BPS Web: How can I use Excel in Web Interface?".

Milton Bispo

[Former Member]

We use Excel OWC via the web interface to do all of our planning layouts. Some of the advantages we have found are:

- Being able to paste information into a layout from an external file. This is a big time-save when we need to bring in large amounts of dynamic data and the users does not want to enter it all.

- Using excel cells formulas "around" the planning cells for reference calculations, warnings, etc.

- Downloaded the excel data from the layout as an excel file with just a single click from the web interface. You can then save the file as a template or for a historical reference.

The only caveat to what we have done is that Microsoft has removed the OWC components from Office 2007 which affects us because we use the web interface. We are planning on replacement for the OWC now. I will share it once we have made our decision.