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Excel ODBC connections

Riz

I'm working with a client that uses a spreadsheet to consolidate data from various systems, by way of ODBC connections. We're looking to move these Excel spreadsheets into M-Files. 

The concern is that once they are in M-Files, from my testing, it looks like they can be previewed and downloaded but its not possible to refresh the data in them whilst in M-Files?

  • 0

    I haven't personally encountered this scenario before, but my initial assumption is that the document needs to be checked out for the data refresh to work. Otherwise, the Excel file will be in read-only mode.

    Have you tried running the refresh while the document is checked out to you?

  • 0 in reply to Joonas Linkola

    From my testing I've tried;

    1. Double clicking to open the excel file from M-Files - it errors "Something went wrong. Couldn't open Document. Please check out document and try again". 

    2. Trying to refresh data from within the M-Files Preview of the file. This prompts "Your browser settings are preventing an optimal experience with Microsoft 365. Please sign in to use Power Query." Signing in errors.

    3. If I right click the file, and select check out, this removes the refresh button in the M-Files Preview but I can then double click the file and it opens in excel which allows data refreshing.

    I can obviously click and drag the file out of M-Files and refresh data, then re add it back.

  • +1 in reply to Riz

    Is this a cloud vault with Microsoft 365 Storage enabled? The behavior is slightly different there compared to a traditional M-Files setup, as Office documents are in co-authoring mode by default.

    I wouldn't expect the preview to support this kind of data refresh in any case. Typically, the process would be to check out the document, open it in Excel, refresh the data, and then check it back in so the updated values are stored as a new document version (i.e. the third of your tests above).

    If Microsoft 365 Storage is enabled, a separate check-out operation might not be required. I'm not sure why double-clicking the document results in an error. You may want to raise this with M-Files Support for further investigation.

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