Excel VBO - is Excel required on the system?

[ChrisRider]

Hello - I have Blue Prism 7.1.2 running in my environment.  I have an automation that is using the Excel VBO to read in data from an Excel file and it stores this in a collection.  Our IT department is challenging me over a license for either Excel or Office 365 on this system.  My question - is Excel required to use the Excel VBO?

I am also looking for official documentation on the requirements for the Excel VBO.  On my local laptop, I have Excel and it my process using it works just fine.  It is a new production environment that does not have Excel install yet.  

They shared a link saying to investigate:

Considerations for server-side Automation of Office

Microsoft		remove preview
Considerations for server-side Automation of Office Describes problems when using server-side Automation of Office and offers alternatives to Automation that can speed performance. View this on Microsoft >

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Chris Rider
lead application analyst
E. W. Scripps
cincinnati OH
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[harish.mogulluri]

HI Chris Rider,

To my knowledge  in order to use  MS Excel VBO excel should be installed.

If the excel installation is problem then  try to check below Microsoft documentation. Other alternative is  opening excel in the browser or if it is CSV  try using other VBO's  to read the data

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/excel-concept-overview

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If I answered your query. Please mark it as the "Best Answer"

Harish M
Lead developer
America/New_York TX
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[ewilson · Accepted solution]

@ChrisRider,

For the legacy Excel VBO you must have Excel installed locally on the Digital Worker. There is another Excel connector that's based on Microsoft Graph. That VBO does not require a local install of Excel as it works with Excel via Microsoft's Graph API. However, the files you work with will have to be placed on a accessible OneDrive location (i.e. in the cloud) for Microsoft Graph to be able to access them.

Does that make sense?

Cheers,

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Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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[ChrisRider]

Eric - that does make sense.  I will investigate using Graph API instead of Excel.  I have used it for other projects outside of Blue Prism.

Chris

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Chris Rider
lead application analyst
E. W. Scripps
cincinnati OH
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[ChrisIddon]

@Harish Mogulluri makes a good point. If Excel license is an issue, convert the source to a CSV and use that format. Smaller file size, less prone to formatting issues.

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Chris Iddon
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