---
title: New Task Pane APIs in IBM Planning Analytics for Excel
description: Automate management of the Task Pane in IBM PA for Excel using APIs with release 2.064. Follow examples and review sample code.
---

[ACG IBM Planning and Analytics Blog ](https://www.acgi.com/blog)

# [New Task Pane APIs in IBM Planning Analytics for Excel](https://www.acgi.com/blog/new-task-pane-apis-in-ibm-planning-analytics-for-excel)

 Written by [Bryan Cave](https://www.acgi.com/blog/author/bryan-cave) | Wed, Jun, 02, 2021 @ 03:33 PM

The **IBM® Task Pane** is a key component in **Planning Analytics for Microsoft Excel** that provides access to the list of cubes, saved views, dimension members and saved sets for the active database. It also provides controls for opening alternate data sources and a **Workbook** tab that provides an overview of report components in the active workbooks and the ability to edit Action Buttons.

Prior to the 2.064 release of **Planning Analytics for Excel**, the ability to open and close the **Task Pane** or to refresh its contents required the user to perform these operations manually. However, these actions can now be fully automated within Excel macros using a new set of API calls:

- Show
- Hide
- Refresh
- IsVisible

 ***Show Task Pane***

For demonstration purposes, we have constructed four action buttons whose VBA Macro code has been customized to use the new Task Pane API commands

The first action button – **Show Task Pane** – is selected.

The macro runs the new API and the **Task Pane** is now displayed.

***Hide Task Pane***

Starting from the last screen shown above, the **Hide Task Pane** button is run next, resulting in the Task Pane being removed from view.

***Refresh the Task Pane***

Our beginning screen shows the **Task Pane** after it has been used to drill into details on several cubes. With this display in place, we now click on the **Refresh the Task Pane** button.

The source tree gets refreshed with the current content from the connected database, and the source tree rolled up to its default display.

***Is the Task Pane Visible?***

The final action button ***What is the Task Pane State?*** uses the new **IsVisible** API to check for & display whether the Task Pane is visible or not.

***API Code Examples***

The following shows the API function used for each of the action button examples:

 

'=== Show Task Pane

Reporting.TaskPane.Show

MsgBox "The Task Pane is now visible!"

 

'=== Hide Task Pane

Reporting.TaskPane.Hide

MsgBox "The Task Pane is now hidden!"

 

'=== Refresh the Task Pane

Reporting.TaskPane.Refresh

MsgBox "The Task Pane has been refreshed!"

 

'=== Is the Task Pane visible?

sIsVisible = Reporting.TaskPane.IsVisible

If sIsVisible = True Then

     sState = "Yes"

Else

     sState = "No"

End If

MsgBox "Is the Task Pane visible? " & sState

 

***In Closing***

The new set of Task Pane APIs do not offer much for basic implementations of Planning Analytics for Excel. However, for highly customized implementations where navigation, data processing and a number of other operations make extensive use of Excel macros and the IBM API library, the new Task Pane APIs open additional opportunities to improve the overall client experience.

 

[View full post](https://www.acgi.com/blog/new-task-pane-apis-in-ibm-planning-analytics-for-excel)

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