Excel prompt inaccessible to users
 

We have a corporate Intranet that contains monthly updated Excel spreadsheets
for employee performance stats. The Excel spreadsheets are updated and
posted on our web site. Users click on the url to download and view the
monthly stats. The spreadsheet is linked to data in at least one other Excel
workbook.

If the file downloads quickly and opens, the user is prompted with "the
workbook you opened contains automatic links to info in another workbook. Do
you want to update this workbook with changes made to the other workbook".
If you answer NO, the downloaded spreadsheet opens right away.

The problem is that the spreadsheets are 6 MB in size and take a bit of time
to download over T1 network links. If they download slowly, the prompt
(above) ends up behind the download window. The user can't see the prompt
and they think the download is stopped. You can't minimize the download
window at that point, but you can use the alt | tab key combination to access
the Excel prompt, answer NO and then the spreadsheet opens right away.

My question - is there any way within Excel to force the prompt to open as
the primary (front) window so that users can see it? Or, is there another
way that we can eliminate this prompt, since users don't have access to make
changes to either workbook? The user group that has access to this
spreadsheet has read and execute permissions to the file. Is there a way to
eliminate the prompts in this case?

Thanks for any suggestions on fixing this.

JT

JT,

Well linking a workbook of that size is asking for trouble. Especially if
you are linking over a network. There are many problems associated with
network traffic and links. Here are a few ways around your issue?

Map a network drive on every computer that points to the workbook. This
might help with the €œresolution€� or the path.

Put the data in a database €¦ and have an msQuery call in the data. This is a
harder solution but also the best. It relies on a database call to update
the spreadsheet. Excel is really good at this €¦ and I have successfully
deployed this method many times.

Regards,

Stewart Rogers

"JT" wrote:

We have a corporate Intranet that contains monthly updated Excel spreadsheets
for employee performance stats. The Excel spreadsheets are updated and
posted on our web site. Users click on the url to download and view the
monthly stats. The spreadsheet is linked to data in at least one other Excel
workbook.

If the file downloads quickly and opens, the user is prompted with "the
workbook you opened contains automatic links to info in another workbook. Do
you want to update this workbook with changes made to the other workbook".
If you answer NO, the downloaded spreadsheet opens right away.

The problem is that the spreadsheets are 6 MB in size and take a bit of time
to download over T1 network links. If they download slowly, the prompt
(above) ends up behind the download window. The user can't see the prompt
and they think the download is stopped. You can't minimize the download
window at that point, but you can use the alt | tab key combination to access
the Excel prompt, answer NO and then the spreadsheet opens right away.

My question - is there any way within Excel to force the prompt to open as
the primary (front) window so that users can see it? Or, is there another
way that we can eliminate this prompt, since users don't have access to make
changes to either workbook? The user group that has access to this
spreadsheet has read and execute permissions to the file. Is there a way to
eliminate the prompts in this case?

Thanks for any suggestions on fixing this.

JT

Thanks for the suggestions. Yes, I agree a workbook of this size is asking
for problems.

One clarification. The linked workbook file is not on the intranet server.
The cells which reference the linked workbook formulas show the path, but the
other workbook does not reside in this path. Since the workbook is not where
the cells are 'linking to', I'm wondering if the linked workbook data could
be pasted in to the cells as opposed to being directly linked to the
workbook.

Sorry, I can't offer more details. I am not the author of this workbook -
just the network admin tasked with trying to make it work.

Thanks for your help and suggestions.



"Datasort" wrote:

JT,

Well linking a workbook of that size is asking for trouble. Especially if
you are linking over a network. There are many problems associated with
network traffic and links. Here are a few ways around your issue?

Map a network drive on every computer that points to the workbook. This
might help with the €œresolution€� or the path.

Put the data in a database €¦ and have an msQuery call in the data. This is a
harder solution but also the best. It relies on a database call to update
the spreadsheet. Excel is really good at this €¦ and I have successfully
deployed this method many times.

Regards,

Stewart Rogers

"JT" wrote:

We have a corporate Intranet that contains monthly updated Excel spreadsheets
for employee performance stats. The Excel spreadsheets are updated and
posted on our web site. Users click on the url to download and view the
monthly stats. The spreadsheet is linked to data in at least one other Excel
workbook.

If the file downloads quickly and opens, the user is prompted with "the
workbook you opened contains automatic links to info in another workbook. Do
you want to update this workbook with changes made to the other workbook".
If you answer NO, the downloaded spreadsheet opens right away.

The problem is that the spreadsheets are 6 MB in size and take a bit of time
to download over T1 network links. If they download slowly, the prompt
(above) ends up behind the download window. The user can't see the prompt
and they think the download is stopped. You can't minimize the download
window at that point, but you can use the alt | tab key combination to access
the Excel prompt, answer NO and then the spreadsheet opens right away.

My question - is there any way within Excel to force the prompt to open as
the primary (front) window so that users can see it? Or, is there another
way that we can eliminate this prompt, since users don't have access to make
changes to either workbook? The user group that has access to this
spreadsheet has read and execute permissions to the file. Is there a way to
eliminate the prompts in this case?

Thanks for any suggestions on fixing this.

JT