Professional Excel ® Services Shahar Prish 04866ffirs.qxd:04866ffirs 3/15/07 8:31 PM Page iii 04866ffirs.qxd:04866ffirs 3/15/07 8:31 PM Page ii Professional Excel ® Services 04866ffirs.qxd:04866ffirs 3/15/07 8:31 PM Page i 04866ffirs.qxd:04866ffirs 3/15/07 8:31 PM Page ii Professional Excel ® Services Shahar Prish 04866ffirs.qxd:04866ffirs 3/15/07 8:31 PM Page iii Professional Excel ® Services Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. 10475 Crosspoint Boulevard Indianapolis, IN 46256 www.wiley.com Copyright © 2007 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada ISBN: 978-0-470-10486-6 Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Prish, Shahar, 1975- Professional Excel Services / Shahar Prish. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-470-10486-6 (paper/website) 1. Microsoft Excel (Computer file)--Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Business--Computer programs. I. Title. 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Microsoft and Excel are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be avail- able in electronic books. 04866ffirs.qxd:04866ffirs 3/15/07 8:31 PM Page iv To my parents, Tzila and Danny — thank you 04866ffirs.qxd:04866ffirs 3/15/07 8:31 PM Page v 04866ffirs.qxd:04866ffirs 3/15/07 8:31 PM Page vi About the Author Shahar Prish was born and raised in Israel. He was playing around with computers for 10 years or so when suddenly and unexpectedly it became a useful skill to have. At the age of 16, Shahar started working in a company that did various backup and encryption applications for the PC. When he turned 18 he was drafted to the army where he defended his country from behind a keyboard, a monitor, and way too much non-dairy chocolate bread-spread. When he got out of the army, he tried to get a degree in CS, but failed miserably due to work getting in the way. He worked for a big telecommunication company (where he developed software for international calls fraud detection) and in a small startup (which did something with browsers — it was never really clear). In 1998 he was the first employee in a small company called “Maximal Innovative Intelligence” that developed Business Intelligence software. In 2001 Maximal was purchased by Microsoft and the product it was selling was rebranded and sold as “Microsoft Data Analyzer”. From Maximal, eleven employees moved over to the US where they started working in the Office group. A year after moving, Shahar started working with the rest of the team on Excel Services (then called Excel Server). After spending most of his life writing code, Shahar intends to keep doing so until the medics pry the keyboard from his dead cold hands. 04866ffirs.qxd:04866ffirs 3/15/07 8:31 PM Page vii [...]... xxiii Part I: Introducing Excel Services 1 Chapter 1: Introduction to Excel Services 3 Why Use Excel Services The Excel Client Farms Rewriting the Models How Excel Services Comes to the Rescue Excel Services Goals First Goal — 100% Fidelity with Excel Second Goal — Security Third Goal — Robustness and Reliability Chapter 2: User and Administrator Cheat Sheet Excel 2007 and Excel Services Object Model Support... SoapException SubCode List Summary Chapter 7: Building the Excel Services Library (ESL) Project Design Abstraction Classes Namespace Support Classes Method Call Abstraction IExcelServiceWrapper IWrapperCredentials Modifying ExcelServiceSoap Exception Classes ExcelServices Class ExcelServicesType Implementing ExcelServices ExcelServices.Open() ExcelServices.FromSessionId() The Session Class Dispose Code... options Excel Services offers It delves into specifics as well as warning against problematic areas developers have to look out for This includes Excel Web Services, the Excel Services UDF (User Defined Functions) extension mechanism and a bit of information about the EWA (Excel Web Access) When they’re done reading this part, developers will have a good grasp of how to extend and work against Excel Services. .. page xxvi 04866flast.qxd:04866flast 3/15/07 9:28 PM Page xxvii Professional Excel Services 04866flast.qxd:04866flast 3/15/07 9:28 PM Page xxviii 04866c01.qxd:04866c01 3/15/07 8:33 PM Page 1 Part I: Introducing Excel Services Chapter 1: Introduction to Excel Services Chapter 2: User and Administrator Cheat Sheet Chapter 3: Inside Excel Services Chapter 4: Programmability Options 04866c01.qxd:04866c01... 3/15/07 8:33 PM Page 5 Chapter 1: Introduction to Excel Services How Excel Services Comes to the Rescue Excel Services has been created to solve all these problems and more While still using portions of Excel code that have been rewritten to be serverworthy, large amounts of work has been done around that code to make it into an actual server product Excel Services solves some of the problems simply by... Introduction to Excel Ser vices So why do you care about Excel Services? Well, since you bought this book, there is a chance your organization uses Excel in its day-to-day operation Who can blame them? Excel is the most popular modeling tool and the most popular database tool It is so versatile that the same person can use it for both a complex financial model and a simple task list In the Excel organization,... not uncommon to use Excel for managing tasks, project milestones, and bug reports Over the years, Excel has gathered a very large set of features ranging from advanced formatting to advanced data acquisition mechanisms With Excel 2007, this set of features has been bolstered even more to allow Excel to be a first-class BI (business intelligence) tool Why Use Excel Ser vices While Excel is a great tool,... 3/15/07 8:32 PM Page xiv Contents How to Administer Excel Services Excel Services Settings Trusted File Locations User Defined Function Assemblies Summary 12 13 14 15 15 Chapter 3: Inside Excel Services 17 Session, State, and Workbooks Caches 17 18 Workbook Caches Data Caches Caching Calculations Summary Chapter 4: Programmability Options Excel Web Services Opening and Closing the Workbook Getting Values... xviii 04866ftoc.qxd:04866ftoc 3/15/07 8:32 PM Page xix Contents Excel Addin Web Application Enumerating Web Services Summary Chapter 14: RSS over Excel Services Overview 223 230 233 234 235 235 What Is RSS Usage Example 236 236 Coding the Solution 245 Solution Structure Library Excel Addin RSS Server 245 245 247 250 Summary Chapter 15: Excel Services as an RTD Server 257 259 Overview 260 Use 260 Coding... 3/15/07 9:28 PM Page xxiii Introduction Excel spreadsheets are used practically everywhere — they are the cornerstone of many applications and businesses Excel Services revolutionizes the spreadsheet world by introducing server-side spreadsheet calculation and rendering with unparallel Excel fidelity This book will guide developers through understanding what Excel Services is, how to work with it, and . Modifying ExcelServiceSoap 78 Exception Classes 80 ExcelServices Class 80 ExcelServicesType 80 Implementing ExcelServices 80 ExcelServices.Open() 82 ExcelServices.FromSessionId(). Introducing Excel Services 1 Chapter 1: Introduction to Excel Services 3 Why Use Excel Services 3 The Excel Client Farms 4 Rewriting the Models 4 How Excel Services