VBA program executing SAP RFCs works in Excel 2016 on-prem, but not in Office 365 (Run-time error 20080008…Bad Variant Type)

Question

Let me first say that I saw the other two threads that mentioned this issue here and here , but they didn't help me solve my problem.

I've been testing a program for several weeks in the on-prem Excel 2016 environment (32-bit) with no problems. My company is making the move to Office 365 soon, so I decided to test it over there as well. On that system, I'm getting a run-time error on the line Functions.Connection = objConnection

Option Explicit
Public Functions As SAPFunctionsOCX.SAPFunctions
Private LogonControl As SAPLogonCtrl.SAPLogonControl
Private objConnection As SAPLogonCtrl.Connection
Public Func As SAPFunctionsOCX.Function
Public Commit As SAPFunctionsOCX.Function
Public TableFactory As SAPTableFactory
Public silentLogon As Boolean
Public tblReadTableOptions, tblReadTableFields, tblReadTableData As SAPTableFactoryCtrl.Table

Sub ExtractProjectData()
    If objConnection Is Nothing Then LogonToSAP
    InitiateSAPVariables
    Set Func = Functions.Add("BBP_RFC_READ_TABLE")
    Set tblReadTableOptions = Func.Tables("OPTIONS")
    Set tblReadTableFields = Func.Tables("FIELDS")
    Set tblReadTableData = Func.Tables("DATA")

    'extract/transform data from SAP tables

End Sub

Function InitiateSAPVariables()
    Set Functions = Nothing
    Set TableFactory = Nothing
    Set Func = Nothing
    Set Functions = CreateObject("SAP.Functions")
    Set TableFactory = CreateObject("SAP.TableFactory.1")
    Functions.Connection = objConnection 'run-time error here in Office 365 but not in on-prem
End Function

Function LogonToSAP()
    Dim establishConnection As Boolean
    silentLogon = false
    Set LogonControl = CreateObject("SAP.LogonControl.1")
    Set objConnection = LogonControl.NewConnection
    objConnection.Client = "###"
    objConnection.Language = "EN"
    objConnection.SystemNumber = "##"
    objConnection.User = ""
    objConnection.Password = ""
    objConnection.HostName = "###############"
    objConnection.System = "###"
    objConnection.ApplicationServer = "###.###.#.##"
    establishConnection = objConnection.Logon(0, silentLogon)
End Function

A quick check of objConnection tells me that logon was successful...so I know that part is working on 365. For some reason though, it doesn't like assigning the Connection property of the Functions SAPFunctionsOCX.SAPFunctions object in the 365 environment (please feel free to correct my verbiage on that...I know it's not quite right).

Note that I'm not seeing any reference issues nor am I getting any compile errors in either environment. The first sign of trouble is on execution of Functions.Connection = objConnection

There's one more twist here and that is that I have another older VBA program that logs into SAP and runs remote function calls that doesn't use SAPFunctionsOCX.SAPFunctions, but rather declares variable R3 as Public R3 As Object and then sets R3 later in the logon code as Set R3 = CreateObject("SAP.Functions") ...it does not use OCX. In other words, the old routine uses late binding. When the Functions object (R3 in this case) is set this way, I am able to run RFCs in both on prem and Office 365 environments.

Function LogonProdSAP(Optional SuppressLoginScreen As Boolean)
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    '**********************************************
    'Create Server object and Setup the connection for DEV
    '**********************************************
    Set R3 = CreateObject("SAP.Functions")
    If SuppressLoginScreen Then
        R3.Connection.System = "###"
        R3.Connection.HostName = "###################"
        R3.Connection.SystemNumber = "##"
        R3.Connection.Client = "###"
        R3.Connection.User = "##########"
        R3.Connection.Password = "#########"
        R3.Connection.Language = "EN"
'        Call Logger("LogonProdSAP>  " & GetUserName)
    End If
    LogonProdSAP = R3.Connection.logon(0, SuppressLoginScreen)
    If LogonProdSAP <> True Then MsgBox ("Logon error"): Exit Function
End Function

I could just go back to doing it this way, but I'd rather not have to reconfigure all of the code I just set up. In addition, I prefer binding early so Intellitype works to show all properties/methods available to that object. I'm sure there are other benefits as well.

What do I have to do to get the early-binding technique to work on Office 365?

Answer 1

It's due to the fact that your Office is in 64 bits version, and SAP GUI for Windows up to version 7.60 is in 32 bits (next SAP GUI version 7.70 should be in 64 bits, so it should work again).

You have a workaround to make VBA work with SAP GUI 32-bits DLL, by using DLL Surrogate , ie by editing the Windows Registry of all incompatible SAP GUI DLL. The original solution was proposed here at SAP Community .

To simplify the task, you may create my.REG file , execute it to update automatically the Windows Registry, and your VBA macro should then work.

I duplicate here my.REG file:

; ====================================================================================
; SAP Logon Unicode Control %ProgramFiles(x86)%\SAP\FrontEnd\SAPgui\wdtlogU.ocx {0AAF5A11-8C04-4385-A925-0B62F6632BEC}
; ====================================================================================

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WOW6432Node\AppID\{0AAF5A11-8C04-4385-A925-0B62F6632BEC}]
"DllSurrogate"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WOW6432Node\CLSID\{0AAF5A11-8C04-4385-A925-0B62F6632BEC}]
"AppID"="{0AAF5A11-8C04-4385-A925-0B62F6632BEC}"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\AppID\{0AAF5A11-8C04-4385-A925-0B62F6632BEC}]

; ====================================================================================
; SAP Remote Function Call Unicode Control %ProgramFiles(x86)%\SAP\FrontEnd\SAPgui\wdtfuncu.ocx {0AF427E7-03B9-4673-8F21-F33A683BCE28}
; ====================================================================================

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WOW6432Node\AppID\{0AF427E7-03B9-4673-8F21-F33A683BCE28}]
"DllSurrogate"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WOW6432Node\CLSID\{0AF427E7-03B9-4673-8F21-F33A683BCE28}]
"AppID"="{0AF427E7-03B9-4673-8F21-F33A683BCE28}"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\AppID\{0AF427E7-03B9-4673-8F21-F33A683BCE28}]

; ====================================================================================
; SAP Logon Control (not Unicode) %ProgramFiles(x86)%\SAP\FrontEnd\SAPgui\wdtlog.ocx {B24944D6-1501-11CF-8981-0000E8A49FA0}
; ====================================================================================

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WOW6432Node\AppID\{B24944D6-1501-11CF-8981-0000E8A49FA0}]
"DllSurrogate"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WOW6432Node\CLSID\{B24944D6-1501-11CF-8981-0000E8A49FA0}]
"AppID"="{B24944D6-1501-11CF-8981-0000E8A49FA0}"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\AppID\{B24944D6-1501-11CF-8981-0000E8A49FA0}]

; ====================================================================================
; SAP Remote Function Call Control (not Unicode) %ProgramFiles(x86)%\SAP\FrontEnd\SAPgui\wdtfuncs.ocx {5B076C03-2F26-11CF-9AE5-0800096E19F4}
; ====================================================================================

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WOW6432Node\AppID\{5B076C03-2F26-11CF-9AE5-0800096E19F4}]
"DllSurrogate"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WOW6432Node\CLSID\{5B076C03-2F26-11CF-9AE5-0800096E19F4}]
"AppID"="{5B076C03-2F26-11CF-9AE5-0800096E19F4}"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\AppID\{5B076C03-2F26-11CF-9AE5-0800096E19F4}]