I am trying to sell the SI Connector to a Sage 100 customer that already has the SI Designer. The primary need is Excel based Containers. We were able to create an Excel Based Container and write a standard report (with pivot tables / charts) which is great but we are running into a deal breaker and hoping you can advise. The problem is that when we run the Report Manager report using an Excel Container is errors anytime the actual source Excel file is not open also. In this case the Excel file is on the same machine with Sage and SI Report Manager. Here is the actual error:
Description : It was not possible to connect to the database.
The error returned was :
[Microsoft][ODBC Excel Driver] External table is not in the expected format.
SQLState = S1000
Please check with the administrator that the connection information configured for this data container is valid.
Number : -1147181502
Source :
Driver Error : Unknown
SQL State : Unknown
This is problem because:
a)The original Excel file used as the source for the Excel container may have other confidential information (that is not in the named Range used by the Container we setup) that they do not want the staff that would run the SI report to see.
b)The original Excel file may not be accessible at all by the end user.
c)There could be other users who already have the Excel file open to maintain it.
We are using MS Excel 2013 32-bit for reference. The SI is licensed as the ""Administrator (ADM)"". I am not having this issue with MS Access based containers.
Is there a way to be able to run an SI Report for an Excel based Container where the original source Excel file doesn't need to be open at all?