Hide/Ignore Errors in FlexCel Report

Hi Adrian,

Is it posible to remove (ignore) the error conditions on cells in a flexcel report.

I have a flexcel template with 3 excel tables.

The 1st, _Status_ , is at D8:F9
The 2nd, _Dates_ , is at D13:F14   (underneath the first table)
The 3rd, _Items_ , is at H8:I9  (alongside the first table)

In the first table:
  D8 has a tag:  <#Status.Desc>
  E8 has a tag:  <#Status.Code>
  F8 has a formula:  =COUNTIF(__NewVehs__[Status Flag],E8)    (NewVehs is a range on another sheet)

In the second table:
  D13 has a tag: <#Dates.Date>
  F13 has a formula: =COUNTIF(__NewVehs__[Date Added],D13)

In the third table:
  H8 has a tag: <#Items.Desc>
  I8 has a formula: =COUNTIF(__NewVehs__[Item Code],H8)

The 3 tables are essentially showing different counts of the data in the NewVehs table)

The report runs perfectly, the tables expand down correctly, but in the final excel file, all the formula cells are marked with the green error triangle - with the error "This cell is inconsistent with the column formula" 

I'm not sure whether I've configured my template incorrectly, and it's that causing the cells to be flagged as errors, or, if the template is ok, is it possible to hide/ignore these errors in the final excel file before I save it?


Hi,

You should be able to disable those error checks in the template. In Excel, with the template open, go to File->Options and then under "Formulas" you can uncheck the error in inconsistent formulas:


I'd already tried that... it looks like those options are saved at 'excel' level, rather than 'worksheet' level.

I tried unchecking them on my copy of excel (with the template open), saving the template, rerunning the report, the errors aren't shown. But if I open the report file on another copy of excel, which hasn't had the rules unchecked, the errors are shown.
Sorry, the first line in the previous post should say 'workbook', and not 'worksheet'! 

(don't know how to edit a post!) 

You are indeed right that the options seems to apply globally: The options in the Excel pane are kind of a mess, where some apply to Excel and others to the file and they are all mixed.


I know it is possible to selectively disable errors in the file, because well, implementing an API to do it with FlexCel is in our long todo list. And I know you can do it by clicking in the green square and disabling it, and I am believe somewhere you can select a range and say to disable error checking for those cells. I just can't find where right now.

So a workaround could be to write an invalid formula in the template, click the green triangle to disable it, then write the <#tag>. But it won't work, as I just checked and FlexCel is not preserving the error information.

We will see to add error preserving , and likely a way to do it with the FlexCel API for 7.1: sadly for 7.0 there is not enough time as it should be released today (but we are having some build issues and it might be delayed to tomorrow).