Restore the true Export Excel DATA in FE NXT
Please resore the Excel DATA export as it was! Blackbaud, when we export Excel DATA, the result should not be a formatted report that has to be UNformatted again. I have to export our entire GL, and many other reports as Excel DATA-only so that our auditors can import it into their own software. They request our reports as Excel data every year, and it was the one thing I used NXT for, even before anything else was ported over to it. It was PERFECT before, but now, the data exports have merged headers and other rows, making it difficult to shift columns around and add correct column headers. I have to massage the exported results before I can send them out now.
Exporting DATA and exporting a REPORT are not the same thing, and should not be combined. Please don't muck with the good thing you had; restore the ability to export raw Excel data again. We need this function and we used it almost daily. There's no time for us to try to replicate it every time with programming, 3rd party add-ins, or re-formatting every export we run. This one wasn't "broke" before, so stop trying to "fix it".
Respectfully, thank you!
-
Roberta A. Gilbert
- Jun 18 2024
- Implemented
Related ideas
Yesssss! Thank you for paying attention to our concerns! It's already saved me so much time!
This is a step in the right direction. All of you that voted for this, please also vote for FENXT-I-2890 Download NXT Reports in CSV format.
Wooo-hoooo! Thank you so much, Blackbaud!!!! And thanks to everybody to upvoted this, too!
Will this fix be implemented under "Post subledgers" in NXT? I still do not see that option, and it is still an unformatted excel document.
Hi Everyone - Just wanted to let you know that the issue you experienced with exporting data to Excel, where the data was getting merged and wrapped, has now been resolved. The fix has been released and is available for all customers.
Apologies for the inconvenience this may have caused and appreciate your patience while we worked to correct this. If you have any further questions or run into any issues, please don't hesitate to reach out.
Thank you!
Yes, this!!!! Revert it back!
I agree! We use this month end and for our audit.
Please bring this back. It was working before and is essential to our month end process every month.
CSV or unformatted GL Export Excel Data option is ESSENTIAL for our operations and financial analysis! Please get this resolved quickly!!!
@David Ullrey I am trying to bring the organization up to date with the use of the queries. Do share.
This change is going to cost our foundation. Our Audit began in June. It is now July 28. We have not been able to provide our auditors with a auditable general ledger report.
Having audited, Blackbaud should take this seriously. If a system report failed an audit review and took more than a month to receive a working copy to audit, what kind of report would Blackbaud expect to receive in the area of data integrity?
What cost could the foundation incur? The audit is scheduled in incremental time. The auditors have not been able to begin the audit steps scheduled in the month June or July. Time outside of the schedule results in costs to the foundation at a minimum of cost per hour.
We need a report today! Not tomorrow or next week! We have an immediate need.
Restore the report the way that it was.
Remove the merging and the page break headers.
Keep the Criteria
Must be sorted by account code in order to easily reconcile to the Trial Balance.
We need a report today! Not tomorrow or next week! We have an immediate need.
I would like to add the below notes:
1. The only reason that I export to excel is so that I can sort and summarize the data in a variety of ways depending on what analysis I'm doing (think tables and pivot tables).
2. Merged cells are a barrier to sorting and summarizing, but that can be overcome by "unmerging."
3. The more frustrating barrier is having more than one data element per column and more than one row per transaction.
* Here's what I get from the unedited "Export Excel data."
[image.png]
* Here's what I have after "unmerging."
[image.png]
* Here's what I need (one line per transaction, one data element type per column).
[image.png]
Years ago, Sara Lamacraft (is she still with Blackbaud?) taught me how to export to csv from the database view and "tease out" what I need from that export. I still do that. It requires a lot of manipulation though. So if you can't give me what I need as illustrated in bullet point 3 above, please, please don't take away the export to CSV functionality.
Sarah
Ext. 130 or
713-595-0130
"Under consideration" now - there is hope!
Thank you for starting this "Idea"!
I also depend on the Excel Data report to be clean, unformatted Excel data in consistent rows every time I export from a saved report. I can't believe we have lost this function which was the best bit of NXT.
Please Blackbaud, bring it back! We have so many spreadsheets that use imported data from the Excel Data reports and it's a ton of work to use them now.
Please bring back the export Excel Data option! It really adds much more work when you have to reformat the data to use it & every time you use it becomes a bit stressful.
Not sure how to vote for this - but they definitley need to fix this - URGH - eating up our valuable time on this - PLAIN excel only - no merged cells!
Agree whole-heartedly with you, @Paul Wu ! I only created this because I was told the actual developers read these things. This used to be a function that worked perfectly and beautifully in NXT, even back when NXT's other functions were in their infancy. Now the developers have tried to combine the idea of a data export with a formatted report. Do not do this, Developers! Our auditors request plain Excel data so they can manipulate the columns and rows easily. Now I have to either manually manually tweak each of the hundreds of reports we run, or send them "broken" and apologise for our software's bad behavior. It's maddening. Blackbaud took something that worked, and broke it, without asking the users what we needed.
This is not a 'New idea' This is revert back to the previous functionality of the Reporting option to Export to Excel Data.
This is not the first time Blackbaud has made this error as I had a ticket in for something similar back in May 2021.
Agree 100% with Roberta on bringing back this functionality. And if a deliberate change, it should have been part of some release notes. This happened once before if I recall correctly, and it was fixed promptly. Unfortunately, now they are saying that it is "working as designed."
@David Ullrey : Thanks for your comment. I know how to do queries and we use them for some items. But when we are preparing audit reports, I am not going to export a year's worth of transactions as a query, when I already have the report saved in FE, and all I need to do is export it, just as I have done in the past. A;so, I don't mind the column header wrapping as much as I mind the merged cells! I have to Unmerge the entire report before I can re-order or eliminate superfluous columns. Again, the source report templates for these are already created and acceptable - all I have to do is change the header and the date ranges and then export the data. No queries required.
Blackbaud, take note: It's one thing to move a function to NXT. It's quite something else to REMOVE the function with no warning, or worse, to CHANGE it so that it no longer behaves as it did before. I don't need an entire webinar on how to export a report to Excel - I already knew how to do that in NXT. I just want you guys to stop futzing with the functions that already work well, and then make us all find out the hard way that it no longer works as it did. Thank you!