topic Fantastic, thanks a million! in Product Forum

Excel - Run Macro (Threaded)

IanClowery — Thu, 25 Jan 2018 13:48:00 GMT

Hi, Has anyone had any luck getting the "Run Macro with Parallel Thread" code snippet provided by BP in the VBOs section, plugged into their MS Excel VBO? It calls a function that isn't included in the base MS Excel VBO (WaitForConfirmationDialog), and there's no global code included with the XML.

Hi Ian, The attached VBO has…

PSSupport — Thu, 01 Feb 2018 10:34:00 GMT

Hi Ian, The attached VBO has the Run Macro with Parallel thread and also includes the code in the Initialise Page. Hope this helps. Regards Andrew

Fantastic, thanks a million!

IanClowery — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 14:41:00 GMT

Fantastic, thanks a million!

RE: Hi Ian, The attached VBO has…

PatrickG — Wed, 25 Mar 2020 13:55:00 GMT

Hi,

Somewhat old discussion but, I'm experiencing issues when macros are running.
Where can I obtain this VBO that has Run Macro with Parallel thread action?

I cannot see any attachments.

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Patrick G
RPA Dev
Europe/Warsaw
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RE: Hi Ian, The attached VBO has…

Bryant.backus — Wed, 22 Jul 2020 20:26:00 GMT

Hello,

I have a need to run a timeout timer during a macro and would like to also know where I can get this VBO.

Thanks,

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Bryant Backus
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RE: Hi Ian, The attached VBO has…

jorge.barajas — Thu, 30 Jul 2020 01:19:00 GMT

Hi, here is the link to download the MS Excel VBO - Extended, which contains the Run Macro action. I have used in the past and it works well. Just create the macro in Excel, give it a name, save it and then call it from Blue Prism using this object and the Run Macro action.

Let me know if you have any specific questions about it though.

https://digitalexchange.blueprism.com/dx/entry/9648/solution/ms-excel-vbo---extended

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Jorge Barajas
Blue Prism
Senior Product Consultant
Austin, Texas
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RE: Hi Ian, The attached VBO has…

XianglingLiu — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 04:16:00 GMT

Hi , even i called action Run Macro with Parallel Thread which i downloaded from the url, BP is still hung (waits user to click the pop up in macro) when a pop up comes from the macro. any ideas?

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Xiangling Liu
Consultant
DXC
Asia/Shanghai
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RE: Hi Ian, The attached VBO has…

Kiran_P — Fri, 16 Apr 2021 10:37:00 GMT

Hello Jorge,

Good day.
Can you explain in detail like what kind of pop ups the parallel thread would be able to handle while the macro is running from BP. I was using the Run Macro with Parallel Thread action and trying to understand its functionality, I have created a generic error - kept a file open and tried to move/copy the file to different path from a macro, attached is the permission denied pop up which the Run macro with parallel thread was not able to handle and it required manual intervention.

Could you explain the functionality in detail? Hoping for a quick response.

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Kiran P Associate Consultant
SENIOR ANALYST
Northern Trust
Bangalore
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RE: Hi Ian, The attached VBO has…

ewilson — Mon, 19 Apr 2021 13:51:00 GMT

Hi Kiran,

If you take a look at the code stage on the Run Macro with Parallel Thread action you'll see that it makes a call to a method titled WaitForConfirmationDialog. This is a method defined in the Global Code section of the VBO. This method runs a loop that checks for the presence of new Windows with "Microsoft Excel" in the windows title bar.

You can try changing that method such that it will look for dialogs that have "Microsoft Visual Basic" in the title bar. If it matches on the title then it calls an additional Windows method to close the window.

Cheers,

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Eric Wilson
Director, Partner Integrations for Digital Exchange
Blue Prism
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RE: Hi Ian, The attached VBO has…

LaurentAxa — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 09:13:00 GMT

Hi Eric,

When BluePrism executes a macro, I have the following pop up coming.

I am not sure it is a excel pop up. It might be a windows 10 pop up.
The action "Run Macro with Parallel Thread" seems not able to close it.

Do you know how to handle this ?

Thanks a lot by advance.

Laurent

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Laurent Delobelle
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RE: Hi Ian, The attached VBO has…

ewilson — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 13:17:00 GMT

This appears to be an error raised by the macro code (VBA). I'd take a look at the macro and see if you can figure out why it's reporting that the filename or number are incorrect. That would stop you from getting the error.

If that doesn't work, you'd need to try revising the fuction WaitForConfirmationDialog in the Global Code of the VBO as I mentioned in the note above such that it looks for a dialog with title Erreur n* 52.

Cheers,

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Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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RE: Hi Ian, The attached VBO has…

Denis__Dennehy — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 16:37:00 GMT

I had a similar issue once - Blue Prism VBO run macro action led to a pop up, Blue Prism was trapped in it's thread until the pop up was ok'd but because it was a trapped robot there was no way to click the button except manually...

I was pushed for time because it was a POC with a looming deadline so rather than spend time figuring out how to get the parellel thread stuff working I just Showed the Excel and clicked ran the macro from within excel using global actions - so the pop up occurred but Blue Prism was not trapped waiting and I was able to click it using the standard windows interface.

Not ideal but sometimes just getting an automation working whatever the means is the only option.

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Denis Dennehy
Head of Professional Services, EMEA
Blue Prism Ltd
Europe/London
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RE: Hi Ian, The attached VBO has…

krishna.kodimurali9 — Sat, 09 Oct 2021 18:24:00 GMT

Thanks Jorge for sharing the VBO, this indeed quite helpful.

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MuraliKrishna
RPA Consultant
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RE: Hi Ian, The attached VBO has…

Janu — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 13:46:00 GMT

Hi Eric,

I have a excel spreadsheet with three different macros. At the end of each run, the macro displays a msgbox saying whether the run is successful or not. I am using BP 6.6. version and using the Run macro VBO action to run the macros.
I have spied the msgbox popup separately and handled the popup within the same MS Excel utility.
But once the run is completed, the msgbox gets displayed and its not handled. Each time I am manually handling the pop up. How do I modify the code to handle the msgbox within Blue Prism.
Also I don't see any attachment in the previous reply.

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Janu RPA Developer
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RE: Hi Ian, The attached VBO has…

ewilson — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 14:05:00 GMT

@Janu,

The Run Macro with Parallel Thread action is only available in the MS Excel VBO - Extended which you can find at the link below.

https://digitalexchange.blueprism.com/dx/entry/9648/solution/ms-excel-vbo---extended

We'll look at incorporating it into the mainline Excel VBO.

Cheers,

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Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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RE: Hi Ian, The attached VBO has…

Janu — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 14:56:00 GMT

Hello Eric,

Thanks for the reply.

I tried with the extended version of MS Excel VBO and still I see the pop up and I have to handle it manually.

Please find the screenshot below

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Janu RPA Developer
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RE: Hi Ian, The attached VBO has…

Janu — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 15:04:00 GMT

Hey Eric,

Please ignore the previous reply.
I used the Ms excel extended version - Run macro Parallell thread VBO to run, I just gave a approx. timeout as 60 sec, but I couldn't see whether the macro has run successfully or not. More over if i give 60 sec as timeout,but what happens if macro is taking more than 60sec to complete the run?

Thanks in advance

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Janu RPA Developer
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RE: Hi Ian, The attached VBO has…

ewilson — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 15:06:00 GMT

@Janu,

The action Run Macro with Parallel Thread has an input value called Timeout. Are you specifying a value? If so, what are you using as the timeout value? If you don't enter anything I believe it defaults to waiting 20 seconds for the macro to complete. The important part here is that you need to set that timeout to greater value than the estimated time it will take for the macro to finish.

In other words, if the macro usually takes 30 seconds to complete you should set the timeout to say 35 seconds or more. The reason for that is the parallel thread that looks for a pop-up is bound to the timeout. It either finds a pop-up and closes it, or the function times out and exits. This is necessary so BP isn't continually blocked.

Cheers,

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Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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RE: Hi Ian, The attached VBO has…

Janu — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 15:10:00 GMT

Thanks Eric, it works!! My macro takes 65 secs to end, and I gave a timeout greater than 65 and I see BP handles the popup.
Great thanks again for the prompt reply,

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Janu RPA Developer
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RE: Hi Ian, The attached VBO has…

Denis__Dennehy — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 15:14:00 GMT

The Parellel Thread action may have worked - the pop up is not related to that.

The pop up is actually part of the macro that has been set off running (in a parellel thread). There is nothing in our Excel interface that will allow you to interface with a Win32 window.

What you need to do next is create a seperate win32 object called something like "Excel Win32 Interface" with actions to attach to the Excel process read the message and click the ok button on the message box the macro within the Excel document has shown.

The other option is to change the macro code itself so the pop up does not occur - my experience of a similar project was I was not allowed to change the macro code for the robot, i was told I had to automate the process as-is, so this latter option may not be something you are able to do.

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Denis Dennehy
Head of Professional Services, EMEA
Blue Prism Ltd
Europe/London
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