Current behavior:
Wild Apricot uses XML Spreadsheet format forimport and export. It can be opened in MS Excel 2003 and higher orExcel for Mac 2004 or higher. It also can be opened in some free Officesoftware like StarOffice.

Desired behavior:
Using 'old' XLS format instead to be compatible with old version of Microsoft Excel and other spreadsheet software.

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Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot

Hi, I am only able to download the member database spreadsheet when I use a computer with Excel 2003.  Is it possible to make it work with older versions of Excel?  Thanks.

 Bernadette

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Origins-USA.org: Protecting the natural right of mothers to nurture their children

Hello,

Now there is no way to display the exported spreadsheet in earlier Excel versions (only by saving it in version 2003 and later) but we plan to implement other formats for export and import in the future.

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Vassily, Wild Apricot team

If you do not own Excel 2003, you may open the file the latest version of OpenOffice (http://www.OpenOffice.org).  It is possible to re-save the file in older Excel formats.

 

BernadetteMW:

Hi, I am only able to download the member database spreadsheet when I use a computer with Excel 2003.  Is it possible to make it work with older versions of Excel?  Thanks.

 Bernadette

It would be great if we could get away from having to use XML for all import/export.

I can understand why it simplifies processing on your end but the requirement to have a fairly recent version of Excel is a significant obsticle.  There are many cheap or free spreadsheet tools available which would bypass the need for Excel. 

A simple csv or tab delimited text file that can be imported into any spreadsheet program would be a valuable enhancement. 

Gordon

FYI everyone - we are working on a redesign of our import function which among other things should remove the requirement to use Xml spreadsheet format.

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Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot

Export to simple CSV would be great.

Also currently in the XML format I end up with "numbers formatted as text" for dropdown box values (which are numbers in my case) and these have to be fixed one at a time before operations can be performed on them, which is rather a pain.  Export in CSV would eliminate this problem along with making the files compatible with all versions of Excel and any other spreadsheet in the world.

We would like the ability to export forum data to csv or have direct access to our sites sql database.

 

Mike 

Mike, direct access to the database is not possible - can you comment on why CSV specifically vs. XML spreadsheet format we currently support?

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Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot

Many non-profits are run by volunteers who don't even know what XML is. 

 

However, CSV or XLS are file formats that everyone can recognise.

 

XML sometimes (especially WA's exports) treat numbers as letters which means we have to convert to CSV each time to try and run any deeper reporting.

 

The use case is to have a format that is widely use-able and understandable without us having to take time to convert it (or teach someone to convert it) on our own,

 

thanks! 

The format we currently have is not 'pure' XML but XML spreadsheet - which is used by Excel and many other spreadsheet programs.

About the numbers/letters conversion - feel free to contact us in tech support with details so that we can investigate this.

Your point overall is well taken and we do plan to provide XLS format in the future as well.  

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Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot

I also have this problem with the numbers not showing as "numbers" when I put into Excel.  I have to click on each cell and choose to convert to a number.  Very annoying!

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Carol M. Warkoczewski, RA, MSOLE

Hear hear!  Straight CSV format wold be awesome.  The XML format is readable by my version of Excel but crashes it about every third task.  When I was preparing records for input I saved after every entry I made which was a huge PITA.

This is still quite high in our priorities but unfortunately we don't know where this is going to be done - we are making currently a huge redesign of our CMS module. 

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Evgeny
Product Design Team

Just another vote for export changes - I am a Mac user, moving to Numbers from Excel - hanging onto old Excel only so that I can export our membership list now and then.  Some basic format that could be read/opened with ALL spreadsheet programs would be wonderful!

 

Sarah 

Another vote for basic XLS please!

We are just about to 'go live' and I find I cannot use the exported files at all!  (And of course we need them for every event).  I use OpenOffice on a mac (lion).  The xml files are filled with code and I see no way to convert them to csv or xls files that show only the relevant data.  

Please move this to the TOP of your list!  

Also, can we have the capability to determine what fields/columns to export?  Often only a few are needed. 

 

What 'other spreadsheet programs' can read your xml exports?  I have downloaded (and since trashed) all I could find for the mac - none of them could read your downloaded reports.  I have openoffice installed which doesn't produce a readable spreadsheet in this format.  This is really serious as I will not be able to produce attendee lists.

 

However, I finally got them to work in OpenOffice by changing the filenames from xxxx.xml.xls to just xxxx.xml.  I then opened them and saved them as .xls files.  I'm glad I have a workaround but there really should be a more straightforward way.  Many people do not have MS Office.

 

Thanks for the workaround, Jessica. Still this is in a queue for now, sorry. 

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Evgeny
Product Design Team