Definite mind-twister for an Excel MVP

[Joe Schmoe]

I am working on an ASP.NET application that generates an Excel 2003
spreadsheet on demand for the user, containing sales information, and
also editable cells for the salerep user to enter forecasting information.
To make the spreadsheet easy to use, all cells are Protected except the
cells where the user will enter information.

However, since the information is presented in hierarchical layers, I need
to do grouping/outlining of the layers. That works great, until I Protect
the worksheet right before saving the generated workbook and allowing the
user to download it. When the user downloads it, the groupings show, but
when you try to collapse or expand the groupings, you get an error informing
you that the worksheet is protected instead of collapsing or expanding the
grouping.

I found the EnableOutlining property, but it is not saved with the
worksheet, so when the workbook is re-opened, the outlining is then again
locked. Confirming info at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...l11/html/xlproEnableOutlining1_HV05200924.asp

So the other approach I tried is to put in a Worksheet_Open sub into the
worksheet that will automatically set EnableOutlining to True when opened.
However, I cannot figure out how to add the code in from ASP.NET, as Excel
2003 returns an error "Programmatic access to Visual Basic Project is not
trusted".

How do I go about allowing code to be added while creating a spreadsheet? I
know about going into Excel and checking the "Trust access to visual basic
project" setting, but that doesn't seem to work when trying to generate
the workbook from a web app. I've seen some incomplete information about
modifying the local security policy to make this happen, but no good
details on what I need to allow.

Or preferably, is there some way to just set the ability to
expand/collapse the outline/group information when creating the protected
sheet?

Any information for either approach would be most appreciated! I'm beating
my head against the wall on this one! Feel like I'm stuck in the classic
Chicken and the Egg situation

 

[Charles Williams]

Why not have your asp.net code start by opening a workbook that contains the
required code?

 

[Joe Schmoe]

Wanted to do that, however, am first generating the spreadsheet as Excel-
formatted XML, then opening the XML with the Excel object, and saving it as
an .XLS.

Initially tried building the spreadsheet with a 'template' XLS file with the
basics already in it, however, with all the formulas being plugged into this
spreadsheet (Several thousand in each worksheet, and several worksheets in
the workbook), using Interop calls to build the worksheet became
prohibitively slow (Nearly 20 minutes for the most complex ones), so
switched to XML format which puts the generation time down to less than a
minute. However, doing it this way makes it so Macros cannot be embedded in
it. (Excel XML doesn't allow that)

Did try combining the new workbook with an existing 'template' workbook that
contains the code, but then I run into the problem with the "Programmatic
access to Visual Basic Project is not trusted" error popping up.

Thanks for your suggestion however, got any others?

 

[Joe Schmoe]

OK, my approach was wrong. I was trying to copy the template workbook (The
one with the Macro code already embedded) INTO the generated spreadsheet.
That gave me the "Programmatic access to Visual Basic Project is not
trusted" problem.

The solution is to copy the generated spreadsheet into the template
workbook, then SaveAs the template to the desired filename.

Works just fine now, other than the fact that I cannot delete the worksheet
that is part of the template workbook. Had two other people here having a
great time trying to figure out how to delete it (Using tested code from
other apps to delete worksheets, so we know it works normally), finally gave
up and just set the sheet so that Visible=False. Very strange.

Thanks!