I have a dynamic list of category options I want to present in some cells using a data validation drop down. This list is ('admin') user-editable, and is located on a sheet named Config in column D. The list has a header cell in D2 and starts at cell D3, and can be as long as needed.
I wrapped the list in a named range called 'Categories', which has the formula:
=Config!$D$3:OFFSET(Config!$D$3,COUNTA(Config!$D:$D)-1,0)
The data validation cells I set to be of type 'list', and as the formula I just refer to this named range:
=Categories
The effect of this is that these cells now have a data validation drop down containing the categories. And when updating the category list, the data validation drop downs update accordingly.
However, today I found out that in Excel 2019 the drop down list behaves as usual (showing the current options), but users are now capable of typing in just about anything in those cells without Excel raising the "invalid data" prompt. This used to work just fine IIRC ever since I started using this technique (before Excel 2010), with Excel giving the users a slap on the wrists when they manually typed non-conforming data. But when I rechecked today in Excel 2019 and even in Excel 2010, it now allows invalid user-typed data without giving any prompt whatsoever.
Looking what actually got broken, I first simplified the formula in the 'Categories' named range to just refer to a fixed range (e.g. Config!D3:D11), but that didn't fix anything; the user is still able to type in anything he wants. I then replaced the formula in the data validation cells with
=indirect("Config!D3:D11")
and that makes Excel recognize invalid user-typed data again. However, by using the indirect formula I can't refer to named ranges, let alone use a formula. And indirect won't update the cell addresses when users move the list source cells around. And using these dynamic-list formulas directly in the data validation formula isn't allowed either.
So is this a genuine Excel bug, introduced somewhere in the last few years, or was this functionality always working this way and was I just not aware of it all this time?
Update
As the answer by #Ghislain said, it is blanks in the option list that causes Excel to suddenly accept anything the user types. And it appears the checkbox "Ignore blanks" controls this behavior.
I intuitively always thought the option meant something like "Allow users to keep the cell blank" or such. Not to lose my sanity, I also checked what Microsoft themselves think it does. Quote from the Excel 2019 help page for the dialog:
Select the Ignore blank checkbox if you want to ignore blank spaces.
And quote from the Excel 2010 offline chm help file:
If it’s OK for people to leave the cell empty, check the Ignore blank
box.
So it seems they themselves also haven't sorted it out quite yet :)
I believe the bug is that in your validation list you have an empty cell, which make any value authorised: I suspect D3:D11 has an empty cell. Is that really a bug?
I'm using Office.js to create an Add-in for Excel.
I'm able to get the exact styling (fill colors, font size, borders, etc) of individual cells of ranges and now need to do the same for cells of tables.
I'm able to get the the table's style and then get the style's properties. However, besides the fact that this is only supported since ExcelAPI 1.7, it seems to only describe the style in general terms. That is, it doesn't seem to describe the detailed table style properties such as "First row stripe", "Total row", etc.
(Note that getting the table's individual cell styles doesn't work like for cells of ranges. The styling properties, such as fill.color, don't represent the effectively applied styling of the cell if the cell's styling from the table's base style hasn't been overridden.)
Things I have considered:
Convert the table to a range. But I guess that this is destructive to the worksheet and I see no way of performing an undo.
Convert the table to a range and back to a table again. This is destructive as well and I'm afraid I could somehow not exactly recreate the table as it was before.
Create a copy of the worksheet and then covert the tables to ranges. That could work but it's ExcelAPI 1.7 only.
Read the raw style info from the file's OOXML representation but I don't think that that's possible with Office.js alone.
Any suggestion on how to get an Excel table's exact styling information using only Office.js and with an API version as low as possible?
Edit: Turns out we do have access to the whole .xlsx file with Office.js using the Office.context.document.getFileAsync method. I'll try to get the full style info by reading the xl/styles.xml file but I'd still prefer a better solution.
You can still get range from the table you want to handle. For example,
Var range = worksheet.getRange("A1:E1").
Although "A1:E1" is part of a table, you can still get the area as a range and do your further actions.
So I'm using structured references for user data. Eventually we'll have a proper import procedure, but I was hoping to push that back to later and instead use copy-past of their raw data for now.
So I have a table, say tData, that contains a a copy of raw data output. That output already comes with headers, which are actually used in the structured references to the data throughout the workbook.
My problem is that the raw output isn't 100% stable - e.g. some columns may appear & go. Those aren't used in calculations, but it does affect slightly the table structure (position of columns). I can't control the raw output.
I was hoping to instruct them for now to copy-past directly. As I am working with the headers & not position, I thought the formulas would still work.
Summarize in the images below: =tTest[Column2] is the formula set for the box on the right. It should refer to the content of column2 (so 2). If I copy-past different headers, with "Column0" that shifts everything to the right, you can see that a positional reference is actually used by excel to refer to your data. It now returns "1" and Excel even changed the formula to "=tTest[Column1].
Seems wrong to me - e.g. if you reference something by name you don't expect it to actually be referenced by position.
I already tried tTest[[header]:[header]] and it doesn work either.
So, in the end, better write a proper import procedure I think. I won't post here because it's somewhat involved and there are various checks to perform. But overall steps are:
File picker to select the data to input
Copy everything into ThisWorkbook, close input file
Match the column headers from input data with mytable.HeaderRowRange
Copy the raw data into the appropriate column if match if found
So basically write a script to do a match on column headers, which is was I thought Excel would be doing. And still think it should do. However thinking about it, it is probably a lot simpler to code it this way than to have it actually dynamically adapt named references and not positions....
As mentioned by Bob Phillips, you can use INDIRECT. However that does involve adding an extra INDIRECT(reference_to_table_here) to, well, all references. Excel worksheet formulas are clunky enough I think without have to make them any clunkier.
Even though you write the formulas using column names, in the background Excel actually uses position of the column within your table for its calculations. Whenever you change the layout of the workbook, it updates the position for you.
I have got two adjacent tables. When I apply data filter on first table, it filters the whole row hiding rows from 2nd table as well. How do I restrict filter to only the first table range?
To answer your direct question How do I restrict filter to only the first table range? the answer is - you can't.
Reading the comments it seems what you need is to display the filtered table data next to a chart and another table. There is a little know tool in Excel that you can use to achieve this - the Camera Tool. With this you can create a dynamic image of a range and place it where you want. The image updates when a filter is applied to the source range, without affecting the rows on the Dashboard sheet.
Screenshots to demonstrate:
Setup with tables on seperate sheets, and camera images beside chart on dashboard sheet
With Filter applied to Table A
The Camera tool is not on the Ribbon (Excel 2010) or the standard toolbars (Excel 2003). You need to add it using Customisation. (Add to Qucik Access Toolbar in 2010 or Tools/Customisation Menu in 2003)
Unfortunately you won't be able to do that. When you filter, it filters the entire row (something to think about would be how the row number would display if that weren't the case). You will need to restructure your setup if you wish to prevent that (not sure of your particular use case, so sorry I can't give a more specific suggestion).
I had a similar issue, where i had a table I wanted to remain static - like a key, but wanted to filter the main table.
To get around this, I copied the static table, and pasted it as an image. This way, when you filter on the main table, the image remains where you have put it.
A simple workaround for this general issue that others may have mentioned (but I don't see here):
You can't filter just a range (e.g. a few columns in a spreadsheet), but you can sort just a range. And by sorting the range, then deleting some blocks of unwanted cells in the range, then sorting the range back to the original order, you can fake a filter.
A bit clunky, but easy for some jobs if you're careful.
This question is long winded because I have been updating the question over a very long time trying to get SSIS to properly export Excel data. I managed to solve this issue, although not correctly. Aside from someone providing a correct answer, the solution listed in this question is not terrible.
The only answer I found was to create a single row named range wide enough for my columns. In the named range put sample data and hide it. SSIS appends the data and reads metadata from the single row (that is close enough for it to drop stuff in it). The data takes the format of the hidden single row. This allows headers, etc.
WOW what a pain in the butt. It will take over 450 days of exports to recover the time lost. However, I still love SSIS and will continue to use it because it is still way better than Filemaker LOL. My next attempt will be doing the same thing in the report server.
Original question notes:
If you are in Sql Server Integrations Services designer and want to export data to an Excel file starting on something other than the first line, lets say the forth line, how do you specify this?
I tried going in to the Excel Destination of the Data Flow, changed the AccessMode to OpenRowSet from Variable, then set the variable to "YPlatters$A4:I20000" This fails saying it cannot find the sheet. The sheet is called YPlatters.
I thought you could specify (Sheet$)(Starting Cell):(Ending Cell)?
Update
Apparently in Excel you can select a set of cells and name them with the name box. This allows you to select the name instead of the sheet without the $ dollar sign. Oddly enough, whatever the range you specify, it appends the data to the next row after the range. Oddly, as you add data, it increases the named selection's row count.
Another odd thing is the data takes the format of the last line of the range specified. My header rows are bold. If I specify a range that ends with the header row, the data appends to the row below, and makes all the entries bold. if you specify one row lower, it puts a blank line between the header row and the data, but the data is not bold.
Another update
No matter what I try, SSIS samples the "first row" of the file and sets the metadata according to what it finds. However, if you have sample data that has a value of zero but is formatted as the first row, it treats that column as text and inserts numeric values with a single quote in front ('123.34). I also tried headers that do not reflect the data types of the columns. I tried changing the metadata of the Excel destination, but it always changes it back when I run the project, then fails saying it will truncate data. If I tell it to ignore errors, it imports everything except that column.
Several days of several hours a piece later...
Another update
I tried every combination. A mostly working example is to create the named range starting with the column headers. Format your column headers as you want the data to look as the data takes on this format. In my example, these exist from A4 to E4, which is my defined range. SSIS appends to the row after the defined range, so defining A4 to E68 appends the rows starting at A69. You define the Connection as having the first row contains the field names. It takes on the metadata of the header row, oddly, not the second row, and it guesses at the data type, not the formatted data type of the column, i.e., headers are text, so all my metadata is text. If your headers are bold, so is all of your data.
I even tried making a sample data row without success... I don't think anyone actually uses Excel with the default MS SSIS export.
If you could define the "insert range" (A5 to E5) with no header row and format those columns (currency, not bold, etc.) without it skipping a row in Excel, this would be very helpful. From what I gather, noone uses SSIS to export Excel without a third party connection manager.
Any ideas on how to set this up properly so that data is formatted correctly, i.e., the metadata read from Excel is proper to the real data, and formatting inherits from the first row of data, not the headers in Excel?
One last update (July 17, 2009)
I got this to work very well. One thing I added to Excel was the IMEX=1 in the Excel connection string: "Excel 8.0;HDR=Yes;IMEX=1". This forces Excel (I think) to look at all rows to see what kind of data is in it. Generally, this does not drop information, say for instance if you have a zip code then about 9 rows down you have a zip+4, Excel without this blanks that field entirely without error. With IMEX=1, it recognizes that Zip is actually a character field instead of numeric.
And of course, one more update (August 27, 2009)
The IMEX=1 will succeed importing data with missing contents in the first 8 rows, but it will fail exporting data where no data exists. So, have it on your import connection string, but not your export Excel connection string.
I have to say, after so much fiddling, it works pretty well.
P.S. If you are using a x64 bit version, make sure you call the DTExec from C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\DTS.x86\Binn. It will load the 32 bit Excel driver and work fine.
Would it be easier to create the Excel Workbook in a script task, then just pick it up later in the flow?
The engine part of SSIS is good but the integration with Excel is awful
"Using SSIS in conjunction with Excel is like having hot tar funnelled up your iHole in a road cone"
Dr. Zim, I believe you were the one that originally brought up this question. I totally feel your pain. I love SSIS overall, but I absolutely hate the limited tools that come standard for Excel. All I want to do is Bold the Heading or Row1 record in Excel, and not bold the following records. I have not found a great way to do that; granted I am approaching this with no script tasks or custom extensions, but you would think something this simple would be a standard option. Looks like I may be forced to research and program up something fancy for a task that should be so fundamental. I've already spent a rediculous amount of time on this myself. Does anyone know if you can use Excel XML with Excel versions: 2000/XP/2003? Thanks.
This is an old thread but what about using a flat file connection and writing the data out as a formatted html document. Set the mime type in the page header to "application/excel". When you send the document as an attachment and the recipient opens the attachment, it will open a browser session but should pop Excel up over the top of it with the data formatted according to the style (CSS) specified in the page.
Can you have SSIS write the data to an Excel sheet starting at A1, then create another sheet, formatted as you like, that refers to the other sheet at A1, but displays it as A4? That is, on the "pretty" sheet, A4 would refer to A1 on the SSIS sheet.
This would allow SSIS to do what it's good for (manipulate table-based data), but allow the Excel to be formatted or manipulated however you'd like.
When excel is the destination in SSIS, or the target export type in SSRS, you do not have much control over formatting and specifying how you want the final file to be. I have written a custom excel rendering engine for SSRS once, as my client was so strict about the format of final Excel report generated. I used 'Excel xml' to get the job done inside my custom renderer. May be you can use XML output and convert it to Excel XML using XSLT.
I understand you would rather not use a script component so perhaps you could create your own custom task using the code that a script contains so that others can use this in the future. Check here for an example.
If this seems feasible the solution I used was CarlosAg Excel Xml Writer Library. With this you can create code which is similar to using the Interop library but produces excel in xml format. This avoids using the Interop object which can sometimes lead to excel processes hanging around.
Instead of using a roundabout way to do this exercise of trying to write data to particular cell(s), format the cell(s), style them which is indeed a very tedius effort considering the support SSIS has for EXCEL, we could go the "template" way to do this.
assume we need to write data in the so & so cell with all the custom formating thats done on it. Have all the formatting in a sheet, say "SheetActual", Whereas the cells that will hold the data will actually have Lookups/ refrences/ Formulaes to refer to the original data that SSIS exports in a hidden sheet say "SheetMasterHidden" of the same Excel connection. This "SheetMasterHidden" will essentially hold the master data in default format that SSIS writes data to the excel. This way you need not worry about formatting the data runtime.
Formatting the Excel is a one time work "IF" the formatting dont change very often. If the format changes and the format is decided runtime this solution maynot go very well.
The answer is in the question. Over time, it became a progress status. However, there is SSRS that will create Excel files if you create TABLE presentations. It works pretty well too.