Excel Services is primarily designed as a web-based, data-exploration and reporting system for Excel workbooks, and supports a subset of features in Microsoft Office Excel. The following sections summarize which Office Excel features are supported and unsupported in Excel Services.In this article

Supported and unsupported features when loading a workbook

You can load a workbook in Excel Services that is in Office Excel Workbook (.xlsx) or Binary Workbook (.xlsb) file format as a read-only workbook in three ways:

All other Microsoft Office Excel file formats are unsupported, including Office Excel Macro-Enabled Workbook (.xlsm) and Office Excel 97-2003 Workbook (.xls).

Note With appropriate permission, you can also open a workbook in Office Excel on your client computer from the Open menu on the Office Excel Web Access toolbar, either as a full workbook (read/write) or as a read-only snapshot. For more information, see Open a workbook in Excel from Office Excel Web Access and Create a workbook snapshot in Excel Services in Excel Web Access Help.

Supported features

The following features are supported when you load a workbook:

Feature Comments
Functions All Excel worksheet functions are supported, with a few exceptions. For more information, see the following section, .
Dates The Windows and Macintosh date systems.
Excel Tables Excel Table data, column headers, calculated columns, total rows, structured references, and styles.
Cells Cell values, including merged cells and cell content overflow.
Names Defined names and named ranges.
Calculation Calculation and recalculation settings, including automatic, automatic except tables, manual, and iterative calculation settings for ranges or entire worksheets. For more information, see Calculate and recalculate data in Office Excel Web Access in Excel Web Access Help.
Charts Charts, chart ranges, and PivotChart reports. For more information, see Using charts and PivotChart reports in Office Excel Web Access in Excel Web Access Help.
Formatting Cell and cell range formatting, conditional formatting (except by using data bars and icons) in workbooks, and number formats.
Connections Connections to external data sources, including OLAP PivotTables.
What-If analysis The results of What-if analysis tools, including Goal Seek, Data Tables, Scenarios, Solver, and Series.
Consolidation Consolidated data in ranges.

Unsupported features

Workbooks that contain the following unsupported features will not load or display in Excel Services. For best results, always save a workbook from Office Excel by using the Excel Services command (Click Microsoft Office Button button image, click the arrow next to Publish, and then click Excel Services under Distribute the document to other people). You can confirm whether a feature is supported by clicking the Open this workbook in my browser after I save check box in the Save for Excel Services dialog box to attempt to display it in the browser. If a feature is not supported, Excel Services displays an alert.

The following features are not supported and prevent you from loading a workbook:

Feature Comments
VBA Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code, macros, add-ins, and user defined functions (UDFs).

Note A programmer can customize Excel Services in many ways, including the creation of a user-defined function (UDF). For more information, see the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Software Development Kit (SDK).

Legacy macro languages Microsoft Excel 4.0 Macro Functions and Microsoft 5.0 dialog sheets.
Controls Form toolbar controls, Toolbox controls, and all ActiveX controls.
XML XML maps, XML expansion packs, and embedded smart tags.
Security and privacy Workbooks, worksheets, or ranges with protection, and workbooks that have Information Rights Management (IRM).

Notes:

  • To protect workbooks in Excel Services, use Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services rights and permissions.
  • You can add IRM protection to a workbook if it is saved as a snapshot in a document library. For more information, see Create a workbook snapshot in Excel Services in Excel Web Access Help.
Images and objects Linked or embedded objects or images, inserted pictures, AutoShapes, WordArt, and diagrams, such as organization charts.
Ink All ink features including drawing, writing, and annotations.
OLE and DDE Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) objects and Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) links.
Displayed formulas Workbooks saved with the formulas displayed.
Data validation Preventing invalid data entry and creating drop-down lists.
OLE DB Providers Using a Microsoft Business Solutions Provider, a data retrieval services provider, or the Jet OLE DB Provider.
Legacy list data Query tables and tables linked to Windows SharePoint Services lists.
Queries Web queries and text queries.
External references to linked workbooks External references (also called links) to a specific cell range, a defined name for the cell range, or define a name for the external reference.
Comments Display and adjustment of comments.
Consolidation Consolidated data in PivotTable reports.

Supported and unsupported worksheet functions

All functions are fully supported when you load and recalculate a workbook with the following exceptions, HYPERLINK, RTD, and SQL.Request, each of which has limited support.

If the Function is: Then Excel returns: And Excel Services returns:
HYPERLINK An active hyperlink that you can click and follow. One of the following:
  • An active hyperlink that you can click and follow, if the Office Excel Web Access Allow Interactivity and Allow Navigation properties are set.
  • An active hyperlink to another Web page or document that you can click and follow, but not a location within the workbook, if the Office Excel Web Access Allow Interactivity property is set and the Allow Navigation property is not set.
  • An inactive hyperlink text string that you cannot follow, if the Office Excel Web Access Allow Interactivity and Allow Navigation properties are not set.
RTD Real-time data from a program that supports COM automation. The following:
  • Any values returned by the RTD function that are currently stored in the workbook are displayed.
  • If there are no values currently returned, then a #N/A error is returned.
  • If Excel Services recalculates the workbook and attempts to execute the RTD function or SQL.Request function, a #N/A error is returned.

If you want, you can use the ISERROR or IFERROR functions to test for the return value.

SQL.Request The results of a query that is connected to an external data source. The following:
  • Any values returned by the SQL.Request function that are currently stored in the workbook are displayed.
  • If there are no values currently returned, then a #N/A error is returned.
  • If Excel Services recalculates the workbook and attempts to execute the RTD function or SQL.Request function, a #N/A error is returned.

If you want, you can use the ISERROR or IFERROR functions to test for the return value.

CHAR A character specified by a number, and a block character for a non-printing character. A character specified by a number, and a blank value for a non-printing character.
CELL Information about the formatting, location, or contents of the upper-left cell in a reference. A #VALUE! error.
INFO The path of the current directory or folder on your client computer. A #VALUE! error.

The following volatile functions may return different values when they are calculated in Excel Services on a server computer than when they are calculated in Excel on a client computer.

If the Function is: Then Excel returns: And Excel Services returns:
NOW The date and time on your client computer. The date and time on the server computer.
TODAY The date on your client computer. The date on the server computer.
RAND, RANDBETWEEN A random and therefore different number each time it is executed. A random and therefore different number each time it is executed.

Supported and unsupported features when viewing a workbook

Viewing a workbook in Excel Services on a server computer is very similar to viewing a workbook in Excel on a client computer, but there are differences. Note that whether these features are supported or unsupported, they do not prevent the workbook from loading and these features are preserved in the workbook so that they continue to work as expected in Excel.

Supported features

The following features are supported but may display differently on a server:

Feature Comments
Hyperlinks Supported, but controlled by Office Excel Web Access properties in the following way:
  • An active hyperlink that you can click and follow, if the Office Excel Web Access Allow Interactivity and Allow Navigation properties are set.
  • An active hyperlink to another Web page or document that you can click and follow, but not a location within the workbook, if the Office Excel Web Access Allow Interactivity property is set and the Allow Navigation property is not set.
  • An inactive hyperlink text string that you cannot follow, if the Office Excel Web Access Allow Interactivity and Allow Navigation properties are not set.
Fonts Fonts are usually the same style and size on the server as they are on the client, but if a specific font is not available on the server, then a substitute font size may be used. Also, a user can ignore font styles and sizes in a browser, such as Internet Explorer.
Charts and PivotChart reports Charts and PivotChart reports are static images and refresh and re-display if you interact (filtering, sorting, and so on) with the data that the chart is based on or with the data in the associated PivotTable report. For more information, see Using charts and PivotChart reports in Office Excel Web Access in Excel Web Access Help.
Line borders The following line borders are fully supported: all line colors; continuous and double line styles; solid, diamond, and dashed lines; and thin, medium, and thick line weights.

Note The following line borders are partially supported: triple and double line styles; and solid, diamond, square dotted, dash-short-dash, long-short-dash, and dash-short-dash-short-dash lines.

Color gradient directions Horizontal and vertical color gradient directions.
Cell fill color All fill colors.
Cell alignment All cell alignments are supported with the following exceptions: vertical justify and vertical distributed, which are both replaced by vertical center.
Text rotation Text rotation is supported along with cell and column header content overflow, horizontal or vertical left alignment for positive rotation (+) and horizontal or vertical right alignment for a negative rotation (-).
Bidirectional text Fully supported when a set of characters from one language is displayed.
AS conditional formatting Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services (AS) conditional formatting is limited to the following: font color; fill color; font flags, such as bold, italics, underline, and strikethrough; and format strings, such as number formats.
Worksheet scrolling The number of rows and columns that you can scroll on a worksheet is limited to a maximum size of 500. You use navigation buttons to display the next set of rows and columns beyond the current limit. For more information, see Move around a workbook in Office Excel Web Access in Excel Web Access Help.

Unsupported features

The following features are not supported:

Feature Comments
Hyperlinks in charts Clicking and following hyperlinks in charts.
Tables Replacement of worksheet column headers by Excel table headers when scrolling headers out of view in a scrolling region.
Cell fill patterns All fill patterns.
Color gradient directions Diagonal up, diagonal down, and corner-to-center color gradient directions.
Text rotation The cell fill or pattern is not rotated with the text, diagonal borders display as though the text was not rotated, and horizontal or vertical alignment other than left alignment for positive rotation (+) and right alignment for a negative rotation (-).
Bidirectional text Mixing right-to-left and left-to-right bidirectional text characters that have a different glyph (or character shape) orientation, such as ( (Left parenthesis) and ) (Right parenthesis), is not supported in vertical text.
Line borders The following line borders are partially unsupported: triple and double line styles; and solid, diamond, square dotted, dash-short-dash, long-short-dash, and dash-short-dash-short-dash lines.
Charts 2007 Office release 3-D graphic effects, such as shadow, glow, warp, bevel, soft edges, recolor, and reflection. These effects are either removed or converted to an alternative effect.

The following 3-D charts are not supported:

  • 3D surface
  • Wireframe 3D surface
  • Contour surface
  • Wireframe contour surface

Rich text in an object, such as bullets and varying fonts or font sizes, which is converted to plain text.

Note Although embedded charts on worksheets and original charts on chart sheets are supported for display in Excel Services, an embedded chart that a workbook author has copied or moved from a worksheet to a chart sheet is not supported for display.

Row and column headers The following formatting in row and column headers: Double accounting, double underline, superscript, and subscript.
Nonprinting characters Text with a 7-bit ASCII (a subset of the ANSI character set) value of 0 through 32, and any characters not supported by Extensible Markup Language (XML) version 1.0.
Print Page layout and page headers and footers.
Tooltips Tooltips of Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services member properties.

Supported and unsupported features when interacting with a workbook

When you load a workbook into Excel Services, you can interact with it in a number of ways, but there are some interactions that are not supported.

Note Another way to interact that is unique to Excel Web Access is in the creating and changing of parameters, which temporarily change cell values in the workbook either by using a parameter task pane in Excel Web Access or by passing data to Excel Web Access from a connected Web Part, such as the Filters Web Parts. For more information, see Change workbook parameters in Office Excel Web Access in Excel Web Access Help.

Supported features

The following features are supported but may behave differently.

Feature Comments
PivotTable reports Report filtering, member selection, expanding (drilling down) and collapsing (drilling up) levels of data, sorting, filtering, and showing and hiding subtotals.
Find button image Finding text, numbers, and dates by a case-sensitive match, and finding by the partial contents of a cell.
Simple selection Selecting a single cell, row, or column.
Filtering and sorting Using Autofilter, filtering by text, numbers, dates and times, specifying multiple criteria, and sorting. For more information, see Filter data in Office Excel Web Access and Sort data in Office Excel Web Access in Excel Web Access Help.
Outlining Outlining, including showing and hiding details. For more information, see Outline data in Office Excel Web Access in Excel Web Access Help.
Scenarios Executing a predefined scenario.
Refresh Refreshing external data sources including all data sources in the current workbook, a specific data source, periodic refresh, manual refresh, and refresh upon loading the workbook. For more information, see Refresh external data in Office Excel Web Access in Excel Web Access Help.
Calculation Automatic and manual Calculation. For more information, see Calculate and recalculate data in Office Excel Web Access in Excel Web Access Help.

Note Although Excel Services supports the ability to load a workbook that contains circular references, detection of circular references when loading or recalculating a workbook behaves differently. If Excel Services cannot resolve a circular reference, under certain circumstances it displays a warning message that there is a circular reference. The values that are calculated are the same as the values that you would get if you cancel the operation on the Excel client. In effect, Excel Services automatically cancels the circular reference to prevent the calculation from degrading the server performance.

Unsupported features

The following features are not supported.

Feature Comments
PivotTable reports The Detail Group and Show Detail options (also called drill-through) for OLAP data, member search, Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services actions, or using the field list to add, rearrange, or remove fields.
PivotChart reports Interacting directly with a PivotChart (because it is a static image).
Asynchronous evaluation of Cube functions Asynchronous retrieval of data when a Cube function evaluates and the display of the #GETTINGDATA message before all data is retrieved. All data is retrieved synchronously before the view is displayed or re-displayed.
Find button image Finding by the underlying data (as opposed to the formatted data and by a case-sensitive match).
Replace Replacing text and values after using Find button image.
Row and column resizing Row and column width and height adjustments.
Advanced selection Selecting an adjacent and nonadjacent cell range or the entire worksheet.
Calculation Changing the calculation setting of the workbook once it is loaded. For more information, see Calculate and recalculate data in Office Excel Web Access in Excel Web Access Help.
Filtering and sorting Sorting and filtering by color, and saving a filter or sort to the workbook in Excel Services. For more information, see Filter data in Office Excel Web Access and Sort data in Office Excel Web Access in Excel Web Access Help.
Go To All Go To operations.
Managing panes Split and Freeze panes.
Zoom Adjusting the view of a worksheet by a percentage of the actual size.

See also: