How to Enable Excel VBA and SAP Scripting for SCM Automation

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If you are a Production Planner or an SCM professional, you know the drill. Every morning starts with logging into SAP, downloading several reports, and spending hours copy-pasting them into Excel.

What if I told you that you could do all of that with a single click?

Welcome to the first step of your automation journey. Before we write our first line of code, we need to set up our “Lab”—meaning we must enable Excel and SAP to talk to each other. Here is how you do it.

Step 1: Enabling the ‘Developer’ Tab in Excel

By default, Excel hides its most powerful automation tools. We need to wake them up.

  1. Open Excel and go to File > Options.
  2. In the left sidebar, click on Customize Ribbon.
  3. On the right side, find the list of Main Tabs.
  4. Check the box for Developer and click OK.

Result: You will now see the Developer tab at the top of your Excel ribbon.

Step 2: Enabling SAP GUI Scripting (Client Side)

This setting allows external applications like Excel to send commands to the SAP GUI. Follow this path carefully:

  • Path: SAP Logon Pad > Options > Accessibility & Scripting > Scripting

Required Settings:

  • Check: Enable scripting
  • Uncheck: Notify when a script attaches to SAP GUI
  • Uncheck: Notify when a script opens a connection
  • Uncheck: Notify when a script opens a window

Note: Unchecking the “Notify” boxes is crucial for seamless automation, as it prevents annoying security pop-ups from stopping your script.

Step 3: Setting Up the VBA Reference Library

For Excel VBA to understand SAP objects, we need to link the SAP library.

  1. Press Alt + F11 to open the Visual Basic Editor.
  2. Go to the top menu: Tools > References.
  3. Scroll down and check “SAP GUI Scripting API”.
  4. Click OK to save.

Pro-Tip from the Lab Lead

“Security First, Efficiency Second.” While turning off notifications makes automation smoother, always remember that scripting mimics your actual user permissions. Never share your automated files with others if they contain sensitive login credentials!

What’s Next?

Now that your environment is ready, it’s time to get our hands dirty. In the next post, I’ll show you how to write a simple VBA script to automate your SAP Logon process.

Did you face any issues while enabling these settings? Let me know in the comments below!

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