Exporting Reports and Graphs to Excel

Brian Mellert

We've detected this issue, or a blank / no response screen which I presume is related, on both v9.1.2.2 and now v9.2.1.0:

 

MBPM will not download a text/grid report into Excel for IE9 (on Windows 7)

1) From the Reports tab, select a "text report" (no graphs / images) and chose the Xls format.

2) User is presented with a busy notification, report is never displayed.

 

IE produces a Security Alert (Windows 7/IE9 or XP/IE8) error when attempting to open any chart/graph report saved  to  Xls format.

1) From the Reports tab, select a "chart report" and save to an Xls format

2) Note when attempting to open the file,  a Microsoft Office "Security Alert - Office File Validation" notice is displayed.  Clicking OK/open does nothing.

 

Exporting to PDF and other format runs as expected.

I see a Microsoft method to prevent all validation via a registry entry, but this is not acceptable for Firm wide deployment.

 

Also, when we do successfully export a test report to Xls, a blank window opens and doesn't automatically close.  This does not happen with other formats.

 

Is there a way around these issues?

Office 2007 SP3

Brian Mellert

I submitted this to the help desk and this is the response:

 

I have gotten an update from Development regarding this issue. To avoid the Office File Validator would require new code to allow download of the XLSX format (and if you're using an older version of Office like 2k3 an additional add-in would need to be installed to support the newer formats) and Development has deemed that this is an enhancement request.   Here is the latest response from Development:

"Opening the following Office file types in Office 2007 or Office 2010 can cause file-validation errors:
Word 97-2003 files (.doc, .dot)
Excel 97-2003 files (.xls, .xla, .xlt, .xlm, .xlb, .xlt)
PowerPoint 97-2003 files (.ppt, .pot., pps, .ppa)
If you want reporting to support Office 2007 and 2010 file types i.e xlsx etc please raise an enhancement request so that product management can consider it at appropriate time."

To raise an enhancement request you can go to the IDEAs forum in Metastorm Community Central and submit your enhancement.

 So I guess I now copy this over to the ideas section.