BizTalk 2010 Installation and Configuration – Install Microsoft Office Excel 2007 (Part 2)

To meet the requirements of my client I will install Excel 2007, but you can install Excel 2010 if you prefer.

Install Microsoft Office Excel 2007 or 2010

Microsoft Office Excel is required for using the Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) feature in BizTalk Server. You use the BAM Office Excel Workbook to define the business processes you want to monitor. You also use the BAM Excel Workbook to define the way in which business users see the data collected by BAM.

Note:
BizTalk Server 2010 supports only 32-bit version of Microsoft Office 2010.

The following procedure installs only Office Excel. You can install additional Microsoft Office system applications and tools if you wish, but they are not necessary to complete the installation of BizTalk Server.

To install Microsoft Office Excel

Insert the Microsoft Office installation disk into the DVD-ROM drive.
When you reach the Type of Installation screen, select Custom Install, and then click Next.
On the Custom Setup screen, ensure that Excel is selected, and then click Next.
Click Install.
On the Setup Completed screen, click Finish.

Note:
After installing the office Excel and tools I like to do a Windows update, this step is not necessary.

Related links

Author: Sandro Pereira

Sandro Pereira lives in Portugal and works as a consultant at DevScope. In the past years, he has been working on implementing Integration scenarios both on-premises and cloud for various clients, each with different scenarios from a technical point of view, size, and criticality, using Microsoft Azure, Microsoft BizTalk Server and different technologies like AS2, EDI, RosettaNet, SAP, TIBCO etc. He is a regular blogger, international speaker, and technical reviewer of several BizTalk books all focused on Integration. He is also the author of the book “BizTalk Mapping Patterns & Best Practices”. He has been awarded MVP since 2011 for his contributions to the integration community. View all posts by Sandro Pereira

4 thoughts on “BizTalk 2010 Installation and Configuration – Install Microsoft Office Excel 2007 (Part 2)”

Users have Excel on their workstations so why another one on the server?

Sandro Pereira says:

July 21, 2011 at 4:38 pm

In addition to the system requirements for BizTalk Server 2010, you must install the following software in order to install the BAM portal:
• Internet Information Services (IIS)
• Microsoft Office Excel 2007 or 32-bit edition of Microsoft Office Excel 2010
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 or higher
• Microsoft .NET Framework 4
• Microsoft XML Core Services (MSXML) 6.0
• Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) 2.7

Office Excel is needed by the Business Activity Monitoring feature in BizTalk Server. You use the BAM Office Excel Workbook to define the business processes you want to monitor. You also use the BAM Excel Workbook to define the way in which business users see the data collected by BAM.

Also, BAM uses an Excel workbook to provide business users with a way to see a real-time view of business processes.

You can see more information about BAM architecture here: http://64.4.11.252/en-us/library/aa577946%28BTS.10%29.aspx
Microsoft Excel. The BAM Add-In for Excel provides a user interface that guides business analysts during the creation of Activities and Views. Excel serves as both a design tool for business analysts and a data consumption tool for business users.

Basically we can say that the BizTalk Server is also a consumer of BAM information and it needs to have the tools to do that (but is more than that)

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Thank you Sandro. So, if Excel isn’t install on BizTalk server BAM will not work at all.

Sandro Pereira says:

July 21, 2011 at 6:17 pm

You cannot configured BAM features (BizTalk configuration console) if Excel is not installed on BizTalk Server, as simple as that.

So BAM features won’t work

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