call Web Services from Mac Excel?

[Luther Miller]

Is there a way to call web services from Excel for the Mac? E.g., from VBA?
I would do this from Office XP or Office 2003 by adding references to MSXML
and MSSOAP and using those objects, but I assume these are not available on
the Mac version of Excel.

TIA...

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Luther,

With regard to MSSOAP, you'll find that there is no SOAP Toolkit for the
Mac, hence using MSSOAP on the Macintosh platform is not going to work.
"In order to successfully communicate with an XML Web service using ASP.NET
from an Office macro, the SOAP Toolkit must be installed on the client
computer on which the macro runs."
<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307033>

Also, it appears that Visual Basic Version 6 is required for Office clients
to access SOAP web services. The level of VB in Macintosh Office is version
5, so again there is no Macintosh functionality available:
HOW TO: Use the Office Web Components with XML Data Generated by an XML Web
Service Created Using ASP.NET
<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=315695>

Because MSXML relies on libraries from VB6 they are also not available on
the Mac.

There are other ways to get data to and from web servers in Office. The
following articles explain how to use Web Queries to get data into and out
of web servers.

HOWTO: Send Values/Return Results from ASP with Excel Web Query
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];201048

How to Programmatically Perform a Web Query
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;162080
This one has a specific example showing how to use HTML POST.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

All responses should be made to this newsgroup within the same thread.
Thanks.

About Microsoft MVPs:
http://www.mvps.org/

Search for help with the free Google search Excel add-in:
<http://www.rondebruin.nl/Google.htm>

 

[Luther Miller]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for responding.

I'm going to sound like a broken record asking this: Is there no
"easy" way to call a web service from Excel on the Mac? Perhaps with a
3rd party tool? Etc.

My assumption from what you have written here is that there is not. As
a side note, the web services in question may or may not be ASP.NET;
they may be one of the Java web servers, for example.

I might be able to accomplish my goals using Web Queries - thanks for
the links.

Does Excel on the Mac have ADO/Recordsets?


-Luther

Hi Luther,

With regard to MSSOAP, you'll find that there is no SOAP Toolkit for the
Mac, hence using MSSOAP on the Macintosh platform is not going to work.
"In order to successfully communicate with an XML Web service using ASP.NET
from an Office macro, the SOAP Toolkit must be installed on the client
computer on which the macro runs."
<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307033>

Also, it appears that Visual Basic Version 6 is required for Office clients
to access SOAP web services. The level of VB in Macintosh Office is version
5, so again there is no Macintosh functionality available:
HOW TO: Use the Office Web Components with XML Data Generated by an XML Web
Service Created Using ASP.NET
<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=315695>

Because MSXML relies on libraries from VB6 they are also not available on
the Mac.

There are other ways to get data to and from web servers in Office. The
following articles explain how to use Web Queries to get data into and out
of web servers.

HOWTO: Send Values/Return Results from ASP with Excel Web Query
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];201048

How to Programmatically Perform a Web Query
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;162080
This one has a specific example showing how to use HTML POST.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

All responses should be made to this newsgroup within the same thread.
Thanks.

About Microsoft MVPs:
http://www.mvps.org/

Search for help with the free Google search Excel add-in:
<http://www.rondebruin.nl/Google.htm>

----------

Is there a way to call web services from Excel for the Mac? E.g., from VBA?
I would do this from Office XP or Office 2003 by adding references to MSXML
and MSSOAP and using those objects, but I assume these are not available on
the Mac version of Excel.

TIA...

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi again,

Active Data Object records sets are part of Active-X, which appears to be
open source (not to be confused with OpenSource).

In 1996 Microsoft announced that they would make Active-X available to "The
Open Group."
<http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1996/Oct96/stkhldpr.asp>

It looks to me that <http://www.opengroup.org/> is the group that was formed
because you can read Active-X specification here:
<http://www.opengroup.org/pubs/catalog/ax01.htm>

It would take me more than a few minutes to figure out how to make Active-X
work on Macs, and I don't know that I would benefit much if I did. I didn't
read the licensing agreement, but since it is open source anyone who wants
to can make Active-X for the Mac, apparently.

The three organizations that would benefit from Active-X implementation on
the Mac are Apple, Microsoft and the entire Mac community as represented by
those who champion open source. The Mac Business Unit at Microsoft has shied
away from tacking the chore of implementing active-X on the Mac - probably
due to the amount of work it would take, the cost involved and a high risk
of insufficient return on their investment. Apple might be a logical choice
to become interested. They have recently used open source to create the web
browser Safari. Maybe Apple could become interested in Active-X
implementation.

There are existing Mac & Windows technologies that often make Active-X
redundant anyway, so I wouldn't hold my breath on seeing Active-X on
Macintosh any time soon. But, you never know. At least it is open source and
anyone how wants to can pick it up and run with it.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

All responses should be made to this newsgroup within the same thread.
Thanks.

About Microsoft MVPs:
http://www.mvps.org/

Search for help with the free Google search Excel add-in:
<http://www.rondebruin.nl/Google.htm>

----------

Hi Jim,

Thanks for responding.

I'm going to sound like a broken record asking this: Is there no
"easy" way to call a web service from Excel on the Mac? Perhaps with a
3rd party tool? Etc.

My assumption from what you have written here is that there is not. As
a side note, the web services in question may or may not be ASP.NET;
they may be one of the Java web servers, for example.

I might be able to accomplish my goals using Web Queries - thanks for
the links.

Does Excel on the Mac have ADO/Recordsets?


-Luther

Hi Luther,

With regard to MSSOAP, you'll find that there is no SOAP Toolkit for the
Mac, hence using MSSOAP on the Macintosh platform is not going to work.
"In order to successfully communicate with an XML Web service using ASP.NET
from an Office macro, the SOAP Toolkit must be installed on the client
computer on which the macro runs."
<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307033>

Also, it appears that Visual Basic Version 6 is required for Office clients
to access SOAP web services. The level of VB in Macintosh Office is version
5, so again there is no Macintosh functionality available:
HOW TO: Use the Office Web Components with XML Data Generated by an XML Web
Service Created Using ASP.NET
<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=315695>

Because MSXML relies on libraries from VB6 they are also not available on
the Mac.

There are other ways to get data to and from web servers in Office. The
following articles explain how to use Web Queries to get data into and out
of web servers.

HOWTO: Send Values/Return Results from ASP with Excel Web Query
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];201048

How to Programmatically Perform a Web Query
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;162080
This one has a specific example showing how to use HTML POST.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

All responses should be made to this newsgroup within the same thread.
Thanks.

About Microsoft MVPs:
http://www.mvps.org/

Search for help with the free Google search Excel add-in:
<http://www.rondebruin.nl/Google.htm>

----------

Is there a way to call web services from Excel for the Mac? E.g., from VBA?
I would do this from Office XP or Office 2003 by adding references to MSXML
and MSSOAP and using those objects, but I assume these are not available on
the Mac version of Excel.

TIA...