Refreshing Pivot requires opening source workbook - excel

Question

I wrote the following sub for a workbook containing 12 pivot tables (PT) in 6 sheets, all pointing to the same external source (another workbook). It works fine, except that if I wish to manually Refresh one pivot, Excel tells me I need to open the source file. If I then open the pivot's source file, the refresh works OK.
I would prefer to have the pivot cache refreshed in the background, like it once was. What am I missing ?
Sub ChangePivotSourceData(src As String)
Dim pt As PivotTable, wks As Worksheet, pc As PivotCache
'update #1 pt in PIVOT AF
Sheet2.PivotTables(1).ChangePivotCache ThisWorkbook.PivotCaches.Create(SourceType:=xlDatabase, SourceData:=src)
'adjust all others
For Each wks In ThisWorkbook.Worksheets
Debug.Print Now, wks.Name
For Each pt In wks.PivotTables
Debug.Print Now, pt.Name
pt.CacheIndex = Sheet2.PivotTables(1).CacheIndex
pt.RefreshTable
Next pt
Next wks
Debug.Print Now, "ChangePivotSourceData complete"
End Sub
The sub is called like this:
Workbooks.Open fn, False, True
shMenu.Range("c5").Value = fn
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual
'change source of ALL pivots
ChangePivotSourceData fn & "!feesIn" 'feesIn is a named range

Answer 1

Took me a few hours but I found a solution.
The problem is that - at first sight - you can't create a connection to an Excel range. You must have a whole sheet, or a table. In my case, the source data starts at B28 and could not be converted into a table. So I manually created the connection pointing to the whole sheet, bringing back of few rows of garbage. I then went the data/properties/definition, and
- I changed the Command type from Default to SQL
- I changed the Command text to a SQL statement like this: select * from [mySheet$b28:bt4000] where ccy is not null (note the required $ at end of sheet name)
Then I managed to get all pivots to point to that connection and finally I wrote a function to allow changing the connection source workbook name:
With ThisWorkbook.PivotCaches(1)
adoConn = Split(.Connection, ";")
adoConn(3) = "Data Source=" & fn
.Connection = Join(adoConn, ";")
.Refresh
'Debug.Print Now, .CommandText 'sql statement
End With
This way the refreshes are fast, and indeed I only need to refresh the connection to have all 12 PT updated.