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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Microsoft Dynamics GP (Archived) / Exporting to Excel
Microsoft Dynamics GP (Archived)

Exporting to Excel

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Posted on by Chip Lemons 20

We just upgraded Great Plains from 8.0 SP5 to 10.0 SP1 a couple weeks ago.  When exporting data to Excel, it appears GP will open a new instance of Excel (we're still using Excel 2003) instead of using an existing instance.  This is causing a (minor) headache for a few of our end users because they no longer have the ability to copy a tab from one book to another because one of the books is in a second instance of Excel.  When they right-click the tab and try to do a Move or Copy, the other book is not visible in the drop down list.  As a workaround, we figured out we could do the export from GP first, and then open the other Excel document that they want to move or copy the tab to.

Does anyone know if there is a user preference or setting in GP where you can tell it to use an existing instance of Excel rather than opening a new instance when exporting?  It seems strange that GP 8.0 did this by default but 10.0 does not.

Admittedly, a bit nitpicky, but I do have a few users complaining about it...

Thanks in advance!

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  • GKlassen Profile Picture
    GKlassen 5 on at
    Re: Exporting to Excel

    [quote user="Chip Lemons"]

    We just upgraded Great Plains from 8.0 SP5 to 10.0 SP1 a couple weeks ago.  When exporting data to Excel, it appears GP will open a new instance of Excel (we're still using Excel 2003) instead of using an existing instance.  This is causing a (minor) headache for a few of our end users because they no longer have the ability to copy a tab from one book to another because one of the books is in a second instance of Excel.  When they right-click the tab and try to do a Move or Copy, the other book is not visible in the drop down list.  As a workaround, we figured out we could do the export from GP first, and then open the other Excel document that they want to move or copy the tab to.

    [/quote]

    We are having the same problem. 

    From what I have observered, if a spreadsheet is open in Excel prior to exporting a Smartlist to Excel, the two spreadsheets do not "see" each other.  No "links" exist between them: data cannot be copied or moved other than select, copy and paste.

    However, if the spreadsheet is exported from the Smartlist to Excel first, then any other spreadsheet opened in Excel can "see" the Smartlist generated Excel spreadsheet and all "links" work normally.

     It seems to me that when opening an existing file in Excel, there is a "linking" process which makes the newly opened spreadsheet "aware" of other instances of open Excel spreadsheets.  However, this "linking" process does not seem to happen when a spreadsheet is opened from Smartlist.  ( I am using the word "links" and"linking" loosely.")

    If anyone has found a solution to this I would appreciate being pointed in that direction.

    Thanks,

    P.S.  We are using Excel 2007

  • callen Profile Picture
    callen 4,595 on at
    Re: Exporting to Excel

    I'm not aware of any setting that allows you to export to an existing instance of Excel. It's how SmartList was designed to work. I could not find any options in Excel to use the same instance. I found plenty of articles about how to create new instances of Excel.

    The only other thing you could do would be to create a data connection to the GP data and open it inside a workbook in the current instance.

     

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