Analysis functions from an Excel Add-In (xlam) causes exception if no workbooks open

I’ve got a series of Analysis workbooks that need to share common functionality, so I’m attempting to centralise most of the code in a VBA add-in. I plan to add more detail on SCN about my approach and experience once I’ve got more of it working.

One thing I’ve noticed, is that if I call some Analysis API functions from the add-in, while there aren’t any workbooks open, I get an error from SBO (see below). Why would I be calling an Analysis function if there aren’t any workbooks open? Because I need to set the visible/enabled status of controls on my own custom ribbon tab. For now, my workaround is to check if the Analysis add-in is connected, before I call an Analysis API function that causes this error.

It seems the error occurs when calling only some of the Analysis functions (Specifically the SAPGetProperty function) – I’ll update this post if I find any moe that cause the error.

If you’ve encountered this error, and/or discovered any workarounds or more detailed behaviours, please add your experience in the comments.

An exception occurred.

Send the attached log file to your administrator.

SAP BI Add-in will be closed.

If you want to save the data in the document, you must save a copy of the document because the data needed for  the addin functions cannot be saved correctly. (ID-102001)