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Is it possible to change the excel file extension used when exporting a PME web report?

Issue
A customer would like to change the file format for an excel spreadsheet from the default, xls, to another format such as, xlsx, when exporting a web report.

Product Line
ION-E 6.0 SP1
SPM 7.0.x
PME 7.2.x, 8.x, 9.0

Environment
Web Reports

Cause
There is a row limitation of 65,536 for the xls file type. This is due to a Microsoft component, called a "rendering extension", that we use to generate Excel files via the Reports app. It generates .xls files that are compatible with older versions of Excel and therefore has to work under the restrictions of older Excel versions. For example, you can't generate a report that would include more than 256 Sources or more than 65,536 rows in a single worksheet. The Microsoft rendering extension doesn't allow us to generate .xlsx files instead of .xls files.

Resolution
For reports which require more than 65,536 rows there are two options available

1) The report must be broken into several smaller reports
2) If the system is on PME 8.0, 8.1, or 9.0 the 'Data Export - Standard' and 'Data Export - Extended' report templates within the General folder can be used.

The Standard report template can export 600 source measurements for a period of 11 months into a csv file format and the Extended report can export 80 source measurements for 10 months. This will produce a csv file which can then be saved in the desired format.