2994110 - Refresh Button Disabled in Excel Report

Symptom

You have created an Excel file and inserted some SAP reports into the sheets. You have saved this file locally on your machine. After a while, the Refresh button in the Excel file is grayed out and you cannot refresh the report(s) anymore.

This may happen after you edit and save the file, after a system upgrade, or even after no noticeable changes done.

Environment

SAP Business ByDesign Excel Add-In
SAP Cloud for Customer Excel Add-In

Reproducing the Issue

Open the Excel file on your laptop.
Log on to the Excel Add-In.

See that the Refresh button is grayed out.

Cause

Your file is likely quite old, and / or you have used macros and other Excel features to enhance the SAP reports. Such a file is static, but the SAP reports are dynamic, i.e. report metadata changes over time.

The longer you use such a file, the more users access it and the more Excel features are layered on top of SAP reports, the more likely it is that the connectivity between the SAP report in the system and the SAP report in your file will break, meaning that the system does not recognize the report in your file as a report anymore.

Resolution

It is not possible to reinstate the connectivity.

We would recommend to always save Excel reports back to the system, rather than saving them locally. If you do need a local copy, we would recommend to regularly save a backup to the system, especially before you make changes to the file, so that you have a backup version of your reports.

Keywords

excel report, business analytics, refresh greyed out, disable, not possible to refresh, grayed out , KBA , AP-RC-ANA , C4C, ByD, Travel: Analytics Tools & Frameworks , How To

Product

SAP Business ByDesign all versions ; SAP Cloud for Customer add-ins all versions