The "IMEX=1" fix was added to the end of my connection string in my Excel Connection manager. It worked like a charm, and much preferred to the suggestion by someone who will remain unnamed that I "simply edit my Registry" on a Production server to allow me to more freely work with Excel. Thanks Sudeep!

Ok guys I have one for you.... I have an Excel file which I "have to work with" because the client "doesn't have the resources" to make it a pipe-delimited flat file (I know). One of the columns which we actually use in this file is a mixed-format column; it's suppposed to be group numbers but some of these group "numbers" are actually all alpha characters. Since pulling this file in is the first step in the process, when I build my Excel Source before I even attach it to any step I try to preview the data and the column (assigned to be a "double-precision float [DT_R8]" by SSIS automagically) and the aforementioned alpha characters all now say "NULL", presumedly because they are alpha and not numeric. The column is setup in Excel as "General" so I can't just flip a column type. Can anyone suggest a workaround for this problem? I don't want to go back to the client and request any work on their part as it isn't really an option. Thanks in advance--

If you get nulls like this: Then you should read it as strings with imex=1. Once it is in your staging table you can do some filtering/cleaning/etc. Please mark the post as answered if it answers your question | My SSIS Blog: http://microsoft-ssis.blogspot.com

If you can use third-party solutions, check the commercial CozyRoc Excel Source Plus component. It doesn't have the limitation you have described above and it also works in 64bit environments.SSIS Tasks Components Scripts Services | http://www.cozyroc.com/