"Workbook is protected and cannot be changed" or Excel workbook is locked

[Former Member]

Hi everyone,

I know some of you out there have hit this problem in the past and now we have a workaround...

If you try to add/remove/modify a worksheet in the Xcelsius embedded Excel and you get this message Workbook is protected and cannot be changed but you did NOT lock the workbook.

The devepoment team is going to see if we can stop this from happening in the future but for now here is a workaround you can use:

1. Start to unprotect the workbook:

Office 2007 (Ribbon menu in Xcelsius or Excel). Select Review > Protect Workbook > Protect Structure and Windows.

Office 2003 (menu only in Excel). Select Tools > Protection > Unprotect Workbook.

2. You will be prompted for a password.

3. This is the password (the O is an uppercase o):

fazOh1+u

4. Click OK and the spreadsheet should no longer be locked.

Regards

Matt

[former_member192542]

Why is the workbook getting locked in the first place?

Is this the default password for protected workbooks? The password looks so strange.

Thanks for the post Matt.

[Former Member]

Thanks for this Matt. Unfortunately, I've come across this again and cannot get around it. It isn't "blocking" me from working, just stopping me from performing any field mappings the normal way. The only workaround I can come up with is:

- clear any existing mapping

- pre-select where you want to map to

- click mapping link

- click OK

- confirm that it accepted the mapping you wanted

To unlock the workbook I've tried (in 2003):

- locking and unlocking with your password

- copying all worksheet contents to a new XLS (just trhough copy/paste, not "copy worksheet")

- converting the file through other formats to try and "reset" the worksheet (XLS -> XLSX -> XLS, XLS -> ODF -> XLS, etc.)

- upgraded to Office2007

The strange thing I think, is that the worksheet doesn't appear to be protected at all. I just cannot perform mapping, and when I accidentally double click on the destination cell I get the dialogue stating it is locked. Very strange and for some reason it happens to me on almost all XC files I work on.

regards,

Mike

[Former Member]

I've resolved this a "new" way, and posted on the BOB forums too:

http://www.forumtopics.com/busobj/viewtopic.php?t=143858

================= CONTENTS =============

The password trick did not work for me (BI4 SP4), but I was able to get around it.
1. Save workbook out to an XLS file
2. Using OpenOffice, save it as an ODS file
3. Upload both XLS and ODS to Google Drive asking it to convert to GDocs format
4. note: the XLS will likely fail with a >400,000 cells error (huh???)
5. Download the now converted ODS file back as an Excel document
6. Import back into Xcelsius

It's crazy, but it has worked consistently for the last couple weeks for me here.

[Former Member]

Has this been fixed in SP3? I will be checking the docs, but you might have some 'inside" information.

Tom Nather

Systems Architect

Cleveland Clinic

[former_member214340]

Tom,

This is not fixed in SP3 as  just encountered and we are using SP3.  Matt's password does work in SP3 to unlock the workbook though.

Tom Marion