Excel interface exception cannot access the file gridapp.cpp:2518

Problem Statement

When a user runs an nVision report in 2- or 3-tier, the report appears to run ok, but at the end the user receives the following error messages and after they click through the error messages the report instance is lost.

'Excel interface exception [E:\pt<your PeopleTools Release Number>b-retail\peopletools\src\psnxl\gridapp.cpp:2518] Microsoft Excel cannot access the file '\\<your save to location path>\YourReportFileName.xlsx'.
There are several possible reasons:
• The file name or path does not exist.
• The file is being used by another program.
• The workbook you are trying to save has the same name as a currently open workbook.' Error for 'Microsoft Excel: '. (28,160)

An interface error has occurred while trying to read or write information to Excel. This message is most likely an error that was generated by Excel where the string above contains the information passed back by Excel for the location given.

Variable <your save to location path>[= '<your save to location path>\YourReportFileName.xlsx'] is invalid for document templates. (28,32)

Root Cause

Whenever an nVision report is run, after the data has been extracted and placed into Excel, the instance is saved by Excel. The location the report is saved to is determined by what is in the the Directory Template field on the report request. (If it is blank, it is determined by what is in the user's configuration file). If the location is a shared folder on a network, then you can get this error which indicates that you are running a report to a shared network location and that another user has also run the same report ahead of you with the exact same name, and they still has the report instance open. Windows will therefore not allow you to save the file.

Typcially this issue will occur when the File Template has a variable in it that resolves the "as of date", and you are running the report for the same as of date as the other user.

Resolution

• If you happen to know who has the file open, you can ask them to close the file if they are no longer working with it
• If they are still working with it, on the report request you can change the output destination ("Directory Template") to a new location (Important: Do not save the change to the report request if the change should not be saved to the database - when running nVision in 2- or 3-tier, changes made to the Report Request are reflected when the report is run without having to save the changes)
• Blank out the information in the Directory Template and rerun the report. This will save the report to the default specified in the user's configuration file. The PeopleSoft "standard" for this is C:\nvision\instance, but may be something different depending on your company's standards. (Once again, do not save your change if the change to the report request should not be saved to the database)
• If you need the report output to be saved to the same network location and the report is against the LEDGER table as are most nVision reports, then a workaround is to change the "as of date" for the report to another date within the same accounting period. You will still get the same data on your report because there is no specific accounting date on the ledger table; the data on the ledger table is summarized by Accounting Period. For example, if your fiscal year is December, then any "as of date" between 01/01/YYYY and 01/31/YYYY will return the same Accounting Period 1 data from the ledger table. (Important: If you have "as of date" information in your report header, bear in mind that if you are sharing the report with others, unless you manually change the date in the report header to the last day of the period, they may fear that the data is not complete. The as of date you run the report for will also be reflected in the file name if the "%ASD%" variable is part of the File Template).