Is there anyway of importing an excel spreadsheet into Web Intelligence and use it as a data source, over which you can create q query? It was possible in 4.1, many moons ago.
Any ideas? Many thanks, John
jecbishop (BOB member since 2006-11-22)
Hi John,
There is no way you can directly use the Excel to create a report.
The alternate way is to create a universe using the same excel and then export the universe .
You can use the same universe to create a report but the report would not behave like a report created from excel .Perhaps it would behave the same way as any other universe generated report.
Cheers
-Arpan 
arpan 
(BOB member since 2006-03-22)
It has and still is possible to do this if the report is created in the client. There is no way to do this with a WebI report.
Steve Krandel (BOB member since 2002-06-25)
It would be useful if WEBI could read data from Excel files. Especially as it is possible to upload Excel files into the CMS. I admit referencing the Excel files could be interesting 
I wonder if BO have any plans for this? Probably not… 
Being able to do this would make it so much easier to migrate my users from MS Access tools that abuse BO by using it as a data extraction tool
Best regards Mark
robbinma4 
(BOB member since 2005-07-31)
Mark, as mentioned you can access Excel data with Web Intelligence if you build a universe on top of your Excel file. This is more flexible than directly reading Excel data into Web Intelligence since you can filter your queries, specify different objects based on your excel spreadsheet etc do all kinds of things you would normally do when performing a query on top of an universe.
Remember that with traditional personal data file excel connection you simply imported the entire excel spreadsheet into Full Client bo report and that’s it. You very likely ended up with wrong object types, unnecessary data etc.[/i][/b]
If BO really plans on bringing direct personal data file -kind of Excel access to Web Intelligence, I hope it’s nothing like the one found on classic bo full client… I wasn’t very happy with that.
Pasi Tervo 
(BOB member since 2002-09-03)
Thanks for the reply.
I agree that the FC implemtation wasn’t brilliant but it was usable just. 
My problem is that my users don’t want a universe as we will charge them for that. We don’t want to show them how to create universes as that could lead to all sorts of “suggestions” about how to update our universes or they could build their own poor universes.
Some of my users have already built horrible MS Access solutions using BO 
and the thought of giving them access to Designer really scares me
Mark
robbinma4 (BOB member since 2005-07-31)
Why can’t I choose a WEBI document from the Public Folders as the report file I wish to use for the data in excel? The only Folders that are available in the Live Office Insert Query are the ones listed in “My Favorites”. If I use a query from “My Favorites” can I share the Excel File and have other people be able to refresh the query??? Please advise, Rhonda
rhousley (BOB member since 2006-02-16)
I know that I’m preaching to the converted, but I think BO are right to lock down the use of Excel spreadsheets, well at least stop them being a point of failure.
There was nothing worse, in my experience, of coming in on a Monday morning and finding 50 critical reports failing Sat, Sun and Mon morning due to the fact someone had left a critical spreadheet open on their desktop… 
.
This was with on an already stressed BO ‘system’, you should have seen the universe, with 350+, very complex, scheduled, Full Client reports running daily - on one box 
! Obviously, any failure caused a lot of catch up, delays e.t.c.
Also, imo, spreadheets have no place in a data warehousing solution, or the ‘one version of the truth’ that is supposed to be BI.
If it is that important to the business then it should be in the warehouse, period.
Now, if I could find a way of stopping all use of Access… 
Mak 1 (BOB member since 2005-01-06)
I fyou’re talking about Live Office…You should be able to do what you want. However, your security is not set up right. When we implemented LiveOffice, we had to redo much of our security for just the reason you specified. What works for WebI may not work for LiveOffice. Live Office requires that the default (EVERYONE) have view at the top level. You then have to set EVERYONE to NO ACCESS on each folder.
It’s silly, but that’s how it is.
Steve Krandel 
(BOB member since 2002-06-25)
I thought the above would be due to security, but didn’t know the answer to this one. Thanks for sharing Steve 8) .
Mak 1 (BOB member since 2005-01-06)
have you tried “Data Feed as a Universe” , which allows you to build a universe over an excel data source , you can then create a webi based on this Excel Data.
It can be gotten from the business object labs web-site.
Emmet_Burke (BOB member since 2007-07-03)
I think you will find this is possible as standard funtionality in XIr2,maybe even before, at least it keeps the open excel sheets off proples desktops!
Mak 1 (BOB member since 2005-01-06)