Is there a Refinitiv Workspace COM API for Excel VBA?

ttgg

Hi team,

I am using Refinitiv Workspace now and I have used Eikon before.

On Refinitiv Workspace, the traditional Excel formulas such as =RHistory() works well. However, COM API cannot work. For example, the older "RHistoryAPI.xlsm" tutorial program (publicly downloadable under Eikon COM API section of this website) cannot work under Refinitiv Workspace -- Excel will give a "cannot find library" error message.

In Excel, go to its VBA editor, looking at References, the previous references are all missing now under Refinitiv Workspace. Missing references include:

- RHistoryAPI

- PLSynchronizationMgr 1.0 Type Library

- Dex2 1.1 Type Library

So, my questions are as follows:

- Is there a way to use Excel VBA to access data under Refinitiv Workspace (i.e., to use COM API)?

- Is COM API something that is going to be discontinued eventually under Refinitiv Workspace (or even to be discontinued under Eikon)? If so, how many years, say roughly, can clients still expect to use their COM API in Excel VBA before it gets shut down?

Thank you!

jason.ramchandani01

@ttgg So thanks for your question. Refinitiv Workspace does not ship with our older COM APIs - instead we have the Eikon Data API (EDAPI) , Refinitiv Data Platform Platform (RDP) libraries and most recently the Refinitiv Data (RD) Libraries. These more modern Web APIs are designed to work with more modern workflows such as Python, .NET, TypeScript for different types of use case.

The COM APIs are still current for our Eikon Desktop but they can be used with that product only not Workspace currently. Further all the new content that is becoming available via RDP will only be accessible from the newer APIs. However, I can reflect your request to the API product management team.

Is there a need for you to continue to work with VBA? If you still want to use Excel - there are are fantastic solutions such as XLwings which can allow Python/Excel Interop (as an alternative to VBA). We have an EDAPI Article and RDP Article showing this - I think you may be impressed. The workflow is much simpler and infinitely more powerful and robust imo (I was long-term VBA coder from the 90s and would not return to VBA - I have used Python for last 8 years mainly). As a student looking forward - I think the sooner you move to Python the better for you imo. Those aren't only my sentiments they are the sentiments of the financial industry in general. See this for example from 2019.

Alternatively, I think you may be able to use our .NET RDP libs with VBA with a little gymnastics - though I haven't tried this. A good start might be something like this from O'Reilly. I will have a chat with a colleague and see if I can come up with something more concrete around .NET/VBA (COM) interop.

I hope this can help.