Why oh why can you only export a table to CSV in Explore? Give an export to Excel option

[naishj1]

Everybody in my organisation constantly bemoans the fact you can only export a table from Explore in CSV format and not Excel.  Is there a reason for this shortcoming?  Is there any way around this or am I going to be forever annoyed that I can only extract data in the most annoying format known to the human race?

[RW9]

I believe you are mistaken, CSV is plain text, portable format excellent for using and sending data, and can be imported into Excel directly using the inbuilt CSV read engine in Excel.  On the juxtaposition, Excel is a proprietary binary file format (yes, zip with XML, but still not plain text), is not portable, and is terrible as a data medium.

If you want to create reports - i.e. human readable reports, then use ods tagsets.excelxp and proc report - creates nice formatted output, which is generally useless for programming purposes.  If you are transferring data then avoid Excel totally and use CSV/XML.

If you just want something simple then use proc export.

[naishj1]

Thank you for your response, I need something I can advise the various users within my organisation to use as I get a lot of grumbles. I will investigate your suggestions.

[Madelyn_SAS]

I think that the assumption is most end users who need to export data would be viewing the dashboard in a report (SAS Visual Analytics Viewer or Designer) and not in Explorer. An exploration is not usually the end product.

SAS Visual Analytics Viewer and Designer do support exporting to Excel. However, note that modern (HTML5) viewer supports exporting beginning with 7.4, and not in 7.3

They could export their explorations as reports and gain access to Excel export in that way.

[ChrisHemedinger]

I moved this to the SAS Visual Analytics board because I think that's the context you're working in (with Explore).  If I have that wrong, let me know -- product and version number you're using -- and I can adjust it.  SAS VA experts may chime in here with their practices.

[Reeza]

---

@naishj1 wrote:

Everybody in my organisation constantly bemoans the fact you can only export a table from Explore in CSV format and not Excel.  Is there a reason for this shortcoming?  Is there any way around this or am I going to be forever annoyed that I can only extract data in the most annoying format known to the human race?

---

Excel is the most annoying format known to the human race!

[naishj1]

Maybe to you but not my finance and account teams who pretty much live in it. I prefer not to use CSV/Excel at all but I am fed up with the constant grumbles standard MS office users have.

[naishj1]

Hi Chris,
Thank you for your response, my end users and I are using explore. I think you may be right about the responses I will get otherwise. The end users/consumers I work with want simple non-technical solutions in a format they can use for day to day office work and the Excel format is preferred by almost all, generating a lot of grumbles within my organisation that get directed to my BI team.
Regards
Justin Naish

[JuanS_OCS]

Hello @naishj1,

I believe you are working with the classic mode of SAS VA. Perhaps you would like to give a chance to the modern view, since it allows to Export to Excel format.

https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Visual-Analytics/Export-to-MS-Excel-from-a-SAS-VA-report-Viewer-m...

https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Visual-Analytics/Export-to-Excel-in-SAS-Visual-Analytics-Modern-l...