Problem:
Cannot perform the action because Microsoft Excel is in Edition Mode
Background:
This occurs as if excel is trying to execute a macro but you are not explicitly enabling the content AND the excel file is coming from a non-trusted location such as your intranet. In our case, we are hosting some of our reports in the Documents section of the web client so that they can be a) run free from the confines of a BPF and b) so that the files can be centrally located for our users in a spot other than the BPC server itself.
Basically there are 4 places that a report can be run from
- A BPF
- From the server itself within the EPM Add-in
- From a local file from within the EPM Add-in or via Excel
- Another central web location such as the documents folder (or SharePoint etc)
Note: This was a decision that was made as our end users did not like the difficulty of navigating to the EPM Excel Add-In and finding the files on the server. Given the design of our app and what users are doing, this was the best choice. From a techie only perspective, if my only criteria was ease of maintenance I would not do it this way and would just leave it on the server itself for pure ease of maintenance.
Also, if we had chosen options 1, 2 or 3 the above error would not occur as the file would be trusted
Solution:
In Excel 2010, go to File -> Options -> Trust Center -> Trust Center Settings
Once there, navigate to the Macro Settings and Choose “Disable all macros with notification”. This will force you explicitly choose to accept macros from
Upon opening your file, you should now see the below 2 message boxes, provided of course you have not overridden the first one to be skipped.
