ODS EXCEL OR ODS Tagsets.excelxp

[Ronein]

What by your opinion is a better way to export : 

using ODS EXCEL(create XLMS file)

Or

Using ODS Tagsets.excelxp )create XML file)

If you were managers of retails branches who recieve monthy information of customers suspected in fraud, which file would you prefer to use XLSX or XML?

If you recieve XMl file, would you open it in Excel ?

May you mention what are the advatages of each way:ODS Tagsets.excelxp /ODS EXCEL?

Which way is more popular?

[ballardw]

It seriously depends exactly what is meant by "export".

Data to share with other systems? Personal preference is neither.

Open an XML file with a text editor. See all the verbiage related to repeatedly stating what a value should be? EVERY time it appears?

If "cell" appearance like color, font, border lines are "important" then the result is not "export" but a report because data systems really should not care about the appearance.

If the item is a report that are intended for people to read with no immediate need to do "in document" calculations then more of a PDF or other document is my preference.

[ErikLund_Jensen]

Hi @Ronein 

As far as I know the ODS Tagset is an outdated method for creating Excel files, that has been replaced by the ODS Excel destination. You can find an in-depth discussion in this paper from 2016: https://www.lexjansen.com/scsug/2017/Chevell_SCSUG.pdf .

As for which format that is best suited for monthly information to managers, it depends on the intended use. Excel is in my opinion the better format for human reading, but it is a bad choice for distributing information between systems.

[SASKiwi]

Your choice of ODS output will also depend on your SAS 9.4 maintenance level. If your level is lower than M4 ODS EXCEL maybe pre-production and not reliable enough. Our primary SAS platform is M2 so ODS EXCEL isn't usable but EXCELXP is fine.

[jimbarbour]

@Ronein:  I have a one word answer for you:  Excel.

I've used the old ExcelXP tagset, and there are a lot of challenges that go along with it.  In some cases, I found that ExcelXP would generate XML that could not be opened by Excel.  In other words, there were errors in the XML generated.  You don't want that.  Use Excel.

By the way, you've asked a lot of questions lately, which is good, but please remember to mark the Solution for each question so people don't waste time on things that are no longer an issue.

Jim