SIMS reports with macros - broken!

[Tash]

Hi

I hope someone can help!

I needed to edit a complex (to me) SIMS report that I'd designed, that uses a macro to convert the output to a pivot table in Excel.

So as not to mess anything up, I "saved as" the report to a different name before I changed ANYTHING.

So then I did a little bit of messing around and then decided to run the original, unadulterated, SIMS report.

It came up with the error message " Unable to load ExcelList.xls"

And did the same for other similar reports that I haven't even opened today.

 

Can anyone suggest what I might have done to cause this, or how I could investigate it? Next time the Head of Year wants to run this report, he's not going to be able to and I'd rather learn and fix what's wrong rather than rebuild the original report (and all the others that are no longer working!)

 

Not my best way to start a Friday afternoon

Tash

[Cache]

In your My documents folder you'll have a folder called My SIMS Documents, try renaming it to My SIMS Documents.old and then closing and reopening SIMS - it is normally a pretty good fix for things like this.

[vikpaw]

You have to be careful, because when you do a save as, it retains the link to the template / file that is embedded within it.

The process for cloning a complex report is to edit it, and get to the template e.g. excel file and "save as" the template file to somewhere, cancelling out and not saving changes. Next when you clone the report, associate the new copy immediately with your temporarily saved excel or other template file. This hopefully stops any cross-over.

 

I remember it used to happen a lot. There were a few threads on it, you might be lucky in the search. I suspect anything that was on SupportNet is lost.

 

Hopefully it's not irrecoverable. As a safety precaution before cloning this sort of report, i would export it. This creates an encapsulated file with report def and template that you can reload without risk.

 

Hopefully you can relink the original report to the template, but i can't remember where they are, or if your changes will have overwritten it. I think they may be stored in the system or doc management somehow. Was it a built-in report, if so you can re-import. If it was a custom one, you might need to rely on a backup.

Edited October 19, 2015 by vikpaw

[Tash]

many thanks for your help both

[CAM]

You have to be careful, because when you do a save as, it retains the link to the template / file that is embedded within it.

The process for cloning a complex report is to edit it, and get to the template e.g. excel file and "save as" the template file to somewhere, cancelling out and not saving changes. Next when you clone the report, associate the new copy immediately with your temporarily saved excel or other template file. This hopefully stops any cross-over.

 

I remember it used to happen a lot. There were a few threads on it, you might be lucky in the search. I suspect anything that was on SupportNet is lost.

 

Hopefully it's not irrecoverable. As a safety precaution before cloning this sort of report, i would export it. This creates an encapsulated file with report def and template that you can reload without risk.

 

Hopefully you can relink the original report to the template, but i can't remember where they are, or if your changes will have overwritten it. I think they may be stored in the system or doc management somehow. Was it a built-in report, if so you can re-import. If it was a custom one, you might need to rely on a backup.

 

This is why I stopped using Excel reports. The process for using them is so ridiculous and contrived.

[vikpaw]

This is why I stopped using Excel reports. The process for using them is so ridiculous and contrived.

I just changed MIS