Comments on: The case FOR Excel Services

By: Jack Jokinen

Jack Jokinen — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:47:47 +0000

Strange this post is totaly irrelevant to the search query I entered in google but it was listed on the first page. – Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed. – Benjamin Franklin 1706 – 1790

By: Govert

Govert — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 08:11:28 +0000

Oh yes – the attributes are [UdfMethod] and [UdfClass].

By: Govert

Govert — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 08:02:54 +0000

Hi Simon,
When the first version of Excel Services was being tested, I put support for the ES managed UDF libraries into ExcelDna(http://exceldna.codeplex.com). So an ES managed UDF library can run in the Excel client without any changes, using ExcelDna for the client integration. ExcelDna picks up the [ExcelUdf] attributes and exports these to Excel.
However, I have not had any interest in this functionality, and every time I ask your question about who is working with Excel Services I get (at best) some vague comment about future interest. I think it will be a long time before it gets significant use.
But, if anyone is interested, I’m happy to support ExcelDna for seamlessly running your Excel Services managed UDF’s in the client.
–Govert–

By: Harlan Grove

Harlan Grove — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:05:34 +0000

Begs the question what ES provides that Excel itself doesn’t.

With regard to Solver, it’s lightweight optimization compared to what’s in stats packages like R or S-Plus or math packages like Mathematica or Maple. If one really needs numerical optimization, Excel and ES are the wrong way to go.

Sharing data objects is possible without SharePoint via database connectivity against central data stores. As for user access, it can be done with file server user and group permissions plus some udf functions wrapped around some Windows API calls.

By: HPY

HPY — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:58:25 +0000

Hi,

I’m actually pushing our financial firm to use SharePoint. I believe excel services has great potential. I understand the concerns about out business users (research team) not being able to write C# and use visual studio. All that aside, let’s make believe we are willing to hire an army of C# developers to create the code we need. We would like to convert our current VBA models to C# and deploy them into SharePoint Excel Services. The only obstacle we foresaw was the use of Solver functions but with http://www.solverfoundation.com/, I think we’ll be alright.

I have posted questions about this approach to get some constructive feedback from people that may have tried this. Amazingly, I haven’t received responds. I was asking myself the same question. Am I missing something? Can’t this be done?

Has anyone out there done something similar?

Regards,

HPY

By: Dennis Wallentin

Dennis Wallentin — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 09:56:29 +0000

In my experience corporates need to have ES defined (=Excel Web Access, Excel Web Services and Excel Calculation Services) together with case studies before it’s possible to discuss how to use ES and implement it.

What seems to be a real trap for many small corporates is that they are not aware of the need of the Enterprise version of MOSS in order to run ES.

Another aspect is that MOSS requires Windows Server, Active Directory and SQL Server which not every corporate find acceptable.

Yes, I work with ES but only with one large client.

Kind regards,
Dennis