QueryTable CommandText Not Found - excel

Question

I'm building an Excel-based tool that has to be both Windows and Mac compatible. This tool needs to pull data from and push data to a SQL Server. I've written and tested a way to do this that works in Windows and should work in Mac as described here (though that link pertains to Excel 2011):
On Error GoTo err1
Dim connstring As String
Dim sqlstring As String
Dim dArr As Variant
Dim qt As QueryTable
Dim sht As Worksheet
Set sht = ThisWorkbook.Sheets(1)
connstring = "ODBC;DRIVER={SQL Server};SERVER=SERVERNAME;DATABASE=master;Trusted_Connection=yes"
sqlstring = "SELECT 1"
Set qt = sht.QueryTables.Add(Connection:=connstring, Destination:=sht.Range("A1"), Sql:=sqlstring)
With qt
.BackgroundQuery = False
.RowNumbers = False
.Refresh
End With
This approach doesn't work in Excel 2016 for Mac. In fact, when I record the process of adding a connection on a Mac, the QueryTables.Add method doesn't even show a Connection or SQL argument...
Instead of creating the tables programmatically, I thought a workaround could be to manually create the tables and then change the CommandText for the tables programmatically as needed (for different parameters, etc.). But when I try to access the CommandText property of the QueryTable object, the Mac VBEditor tells me that it can't find the member!
Has anyone successfully created ODBC QueryTables programmatically in Excel 2016 for Mac or is this another shortfall of Excel 2016?

Answer 1

I was going crazy trying to find a workaround for this when I came across your question, wishing someone had answered it. I just discovered a work-around today. My problem seems similar to yours so maybe my solution will help you out:
I was unable to use QueryTables.Add or CommandText in VBA, but I was able to create the tables manually and then use data from the excel sheet as a parameter.
I created the ODBC connection manually by clicking New Database Query>From Database, which you probably know how to do. I entered my SQL into the Microsoft Query window as such:
SELECT DISTINCT WIN
FROM RETAIL.OFFER
WHERE WIN LIKE 'XS%'
AND WIN NOT LIKE 'XS92500'
AND WIN NOT LIKE 'XS%a'
AND TITLE = 'The Binge'
I'm new to SQL so it may not be pretty but it worked. However, I needed the title to be a parameter that came from a cell in the spreadsheet instead of having to go in and manually update the SQL each time. I was able to do this by going into Connections>Properties>Definition>Edit Query and changing the SQL to this:
SELECT DISTINCT WIN
FROM RETAIL.OFFER
WHERE WIN LIKE 'XS%'
AND WIN NOT LIKE 'XS92500'
AND WIN NOT LIKE 'XS%a'
AND TITLE = ?
Note: It only worked when I actually pressed the Edit Query button, it changed all the ' to curvy apostrophes if I edited it in the Definition window.
Excel then prompted me to select a parameter to replace the ? in the SQL. You can select a cell in the spreadsheet or enter any other string for the parameter. You can also go back into connections and edit the parameters if needed.
Now, I just use a VBA macro to refresh all connections and pass the data from the cells into the query. This works in my use case, sorry if you already knew about making parameters in this way and you need to use VBA. I couldn't get my VBA to work on my mac either, even though it worked perfectly on my PC. Hopefully this will be helpful to someone out there!