I set up a report subscription to a sharepoint library and would like to have the reports render in Excel. But the problem is sharepoint only render it in xls file extension and not xlsx file extension, which is Excel 2007. I would like to have it Excel 2007 file format so that this workbook can be called from the dashboard Excel web part. How can I have the reports render in Excel 2007 file extension?

Hi, Welcome to the MSDN forums. AFAIK, There is a 3rd party library from aspose that lets you do so. HTH, Suprotim Agarwal

Thanks Suprotim, It seems like a good product, but Iwould have limituse of this product. I was hoping someone would walk me thru on how to use the MS redering extension to alter the behavior of RS. Jim

Hi Jim, Reporting Services doesnt output the Excel 07 formats and there is no plan to do this for SQL Server 2008. You would need to build a custom renderer to do this. Thanks for your understanding.

Interesting.Just goes to show that take up of Office 2007 is so low, that MS don't need to bother developing against it.Some technologies from a corporate point of view are still evolving (sharepoint, sql, .net) whilst others have effectively jumped the shark i.e. why bother upgrading? (office 2003, windows xp)It is interesting to figure out MS's direction, not from what it does with products, but what it is doing with the products that integrate with them.So when stuff gets rushed out in a service pack i.e. "ability to save docs into sharepoint in RS", you know it's still valid, but the lack of support for xlsx shows it is effectively a dead technology.The activeX documents of the future!!

I completely agreed with Adolf. Most of the important features were not integrated/upgraded into Sharepoint from RS, which makes the available features become useless. MS,we really need this feature!

Could someone help me with code sample for the custom rendering and how to implement it? Thanks, Jim

Just checking to see if the Office 2007 formats are now offered as supported outputs by Microsoft Reporting Services. We're in the midst of configuring Reporting Services 2008 within SharePoint 2007 for an office where everyone is running Office 2007. Thanks, David Frye

There is an Office Compatability Pack that can be installed to take the xls files and turn them into xlsx files. You can download this program athttp://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=941B3470-3AE9-4AEE-8F43-C6BB74CD1466&displaylang=enThat said, yes, we are definitely aware that folks would like to be able to export directly to xlsx and it is something we will be considering with a future release. Note that you can still open xls files in Excel 2007 and they should work just fine.-SeanProgram Manager, SQL Server Reporting Services

Sean I would have to agree with everyone else, I would think that this should be a priority. As for the compatability pack, that isn't a good answer because then I have to introduce a second step to a workflow and I also have to teach/explain to my end users what the program does, how to use it, and whey we need it.Please bump this up on your priority list.Bryan

I would also say that this is really pathetic that a "2008" product would not support exporting to a "2007" file format. In my case, there are oversights in the xls rendering engine (namely that right-justified numbers with right padding specified in the report show up flush with the right wall in xls cells...if anyone knows a work-around for this, please let me know!) and I was hoping these would be fixed if there was an XLSX rendering engine.Matt

Sean, is there any news on a xlsx renderer yet, without spending another x thousand dollars on aspose.cells? The release of SSRS 2008 with no support for the (2 year old) office 2007 file formats and the inability to use sharepoint webparts against anything else means that two major planks ofMicrosofts BI strategy do not meet - if it wasn't Microsoft you would not believe it. There is some great functionality in both parts but as they don't meet there is just more frustration.Can you please advise on how microsoft suggets I consume reporting services output using a KPI webpart in MOSS? Anyinformation glady received.ThanksKevin

I agree, this is pathetic. I'm supposed to go buy something from another company when it should come direct from MS. I suggest that MS just pay aspose for the technology, and get an update out ASAP on this. My particular issue is we need to spit out some reports that can be over 500k rows that regular xls just does not handle, and csv, xml are not good options for us to keep it simple for the end users. Anyways, my two cents worth.

Depending on how deep your requirements are, you could certainly build a custom xlsx renderer that will handle this task. The xlsx format is just XML so if you are looking to do a data dump from SSRS to xlsx then this is certainly possible today. We do have some additional features coming in SSRS 2008 R2 that will help with data dumps out of SSRS reports based which will leverage ATOM. As far as a full featured Excel 2007 xlsx renderer, it is definitely on our list to build but it will be post SSRS 2008 R2. -SeanProgram Manager, SQL Server Reporting Services This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. http://blogs.msdn.com/seanboon http://www.twitter.com/ssrs

The feature to render report in Excel 2007 xlsx is not available in previous versions. Is this available with SQL Server 2008 R2 ? If not any idea when it is available ? TIA Bipin

Hi Bipin, SQL Server 2008 R2 still exports reports in Excel 97 - 2003 (.xls) format, with all the limitations of that format (e.g. max 256 columns). (see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd255234.aspx) I don't know when they are planning to change this but my money is on the next release (2011?) as otherwise the situation is going to start getting ridiculous now that many people are upgrading to Office 2010 but we are still limited to exporting reports in an Excel format obsolete since 2007. Regards, Nathan