Accessing the Slicer through VBA

There may be times when we want to programmatically control slicers through VBA. For example, we may want to default a date to the current date or set a cost centre depending on who has opened the book. This post looks how a slicer can be controlled through VBA.

In this example, we have added a slicer to a worksheet that uses a date hierarchy as its source. Because, we have included all levels of the hierarchy when the slicer was setup, we get three individual slicers for each level of the hierarchy.

If we look at the settings for the slicer (right click on the slicer and select slicer settings), we can see that the slicer has a name and each level of the slicer hierarchy maintains the hierarchy level name. For example, the Slicer_Dates_Hie below has a level Year, Month and Day. Although we can change the name (for example the name Year in the picture below), the slicer retains the mdx level that the slicer belongs to.

Accessing the Slicer

We can access the slicer through the SlicerCaches object. This is as simple as declaring the slicer cache and referencing it to the name of the slicer we want to use. For example;

Dim sC As SlicerCache
Set sC = ActiveWorkbook.SlicerCaches(“Slicer_Dates_Hie”)

Navigating the Structure of the Slicer

Once we have a reference to the slicer we can navigate its structure using SlicerCacheLevels. For example we can determine the number of levels of the slicer and iterate over them with the following code.

Dim sC As SlicerCache
Dim sL As SlicerCacheLevel
Set sC = ActiveWorkbook.SlicerCaches(“Slicer_Dates_Hie”)

For Each sL In sC.SlicerCacheLevels
Debug.Print “Level ” + CStr(sL.Ordinal) + ” –> ” + sL.Name
Next sL

Naturally, the level can be accessed through the cache level ordinal to produce the same result. The highest level (year) takes the value 1 which increments for each level from the first level. There is always a level (ie level 1) even if the slicer is based on a single attribute.

Set sC = ActiveWorkbook.SlicerCaches(“Slicer_Dates_Hie”)
For i = 1 To sC.SlicerCacheLevels.Count
Debug.Print “Level ” + CStr(i) + ” –> ” + sC.SlicerCacheLevels(i).Name
Next i

Slicer Data Members

We can gain access to the data items through slicer items, as mdx attributes, they have a caption, value and a key (member unique name). For example the year 2011 in this slicer has a value of 2011 and a name (MDX unique name) of [Dates].[Dates Hie].[Year].&[2011]

Dim sC As SlicerCache
Dim SL As SlicerCacheLevel
Dim sI As SlicerItem

Set sC = ActiveWorkbook.SlicerCaches(“Slicer_Dates_Hie”)
Set SL = sC.SlicerCacheLevels(1)
Debug.Print “——————————————————————————”

For Each sI In SL.SlicerItems
Debug.Print “Caption –> ” & sI.Caption
Debug.Print “Value –> ” + CStr(sI.Value)
Debug.Print “Unique Name –> ” + sI.Name
Debug.Print “——————————————————————————”

Next

Setting the Slicer Value

Slicer item selection must be set through the visible slicer items list and is specified using an array. For example, we could set the SlicerCache (selected items) to 2011 and 2012 with the following code;

sC.VisibleSlicerItemsList = Array(“[Dates].[Dates Hie].[Year].&[2011]“, “[Dates].[Dates Hie].[Year].&[2012]“)

The name selected must be a data member of the level. If not a runtime error will occur (as below)

Once the values are set, connected pivots are updated immediately

Member Iteration

Members can be easily iterated using the following code;

Dim sC As SlicerCache 
Dim SL As SlicerCacheLevel 
Dim sI As SlicerItem
Set sC = ActiveWorkbook.SlicerCaches("Slicer_Dates_Hie") 
Set SL = sC.SlicerCacheLevels(2)
For Each sI In SL.SlicerItems    
 sC.VisibleSlicerItemsList = Array(sI.Name) 
Next

Conclusion

The control of slicers through VBA could be used to provide some very nice personalisation to work books.