How to silently install SAP IBP Excel Add-in 4.0

For the IT administrator, there is a very common requirement to have a method to push software to end user’s systems silently. Using this so called silent (or unattended) mode allows the Admin to specify desired installation options via command line or response file without requiring user interaction. Below I’ll outline the command line syntax one can use to perform an unattended installation of the Excel Add-On for SAP Integrated Business Planning.

Note that you may need to remove any existing IBP Excel Add-Ons before installing a new version whether you are installing silently or through the traditional “interactive” method depending on which version you are using. You can easily test this by simply trying to install over the top of your existing installation. If you intend to upgrade your current version then you’ll need to switch SETUPPHASE from Install to Update.

The command is as follows:

c:IBPEXCELADDON02_2-20012124.exe /S /v”INSTALLDIR=”C:IBPexcel” SETUPPHASE=Install CT_LANGUAGES=”English” /qn“

 

Leave the next part of the command as is until you get to the installation directory which in my case is C:IBPexcel. You can alter this path as needed to install to the appropriate location.

 

The other switch I’d like to highlight in the above command is the CT_LANGUAGES. You may change this from English to one of the other supported languages.

 

A small percentage of people will also wish to install the EPM Add-On. I’ll start with the same command as above to make it easier to see the difference. However, I’ll now add the EPM Add-On option CT_SOP_EPMON=1:

 

c:IBPEXCELADDON02_2-20012124.exe /S /v”INSTALLDIR=”C:IBPexcel” SETUPPHASE=Install CT_SOP_EPMON=1 CT_LANGUAGES=”English” /qn”

I mentioned earlier that you may need to uninstall previous versions before updating to a newer version of the Excel Add-On. The silent command for this follows:

c:IBPEXCELADDON02_2-20012124.exe /x /S /v/qn

There is a way to determine if the Add-On is installed currently or not. The command below will return data if the product is installed and nothing if not:

C:UsersAdministrator>wmic product where (CAPTION = “IBP and EPM Add-In”) get caption

Caption

IBP and EPM Add-In

 

Troubleshooting:

 

Be careful that the double quote “ doesn’t get changed to this quote ”as the command will not work.

 

If the process fails, try running the installation in the regular fashion by double clicking it. Doing it that way may give you an error or warning explaining why it’s failing. For example, it may tell you that you have an unsupported version of Excel installed.

 

 

 

One additional point, below is a note that documents how to change the download link in the IBP Web UI. This may be helpful in some deployment scenarios. A major use case for this methodology is when you want to allow end users to install the IBP Add-In and they don’t have a service marketplace account.

 

https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/2236376