WebFOCUS Reporting and Microsoft Office Support


This topic provides details on the support of WebFOCUS reporting formats that generate output in Microsoft® Office products. It also provides usage considerations for hyperlinks that execute dynamic drill-down requests to procedures protected by WebFOCUS security.

WebFOCUS Reporting Formats and Microsoft Product Association

The following table shows the WebFOCUS formats that create Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint reports, the Microsoft Office application associations, and the Windows operating system version availability.

WebFOCUS Formats Microsoft Office Products Windows Operating System
XLSX

Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft
Office 2016, 2019

Microsoft Office 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007

Microsoft Excel Viewer 2007

Windows 10

Windows 8

Windows 7
PPTX

Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft
Office 2016, 2019

Microsoft Office 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007

Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer 2010

Windows 10

Windows 8

Windows 7

EXL2K

(Functionally Stabilized)

 Microsoft Office 2003, 2000

Windows XP

Windows 2000

PPT

(Functionally stabilized)

 Microsoft Office 2003, 2000

Windows XP

Windows 2000

For additional information on Microsoft Office releases compatible with Windows operating systems, see Get Windows 10 App, which has a customized compatibility report for each PC, and provides a unified compatibility view of a PC, its onboard devices, and applications.

WebFOCUS EXL2K and PPT Formats and Microsoft Office Suite Support

Due to file type and content security policy changes implemented by Microsoft, the WebFOCUS EXL2K and PPT formats are not supported with Microsoft Office 2013 and higher. The WebFOCUS XLSX and PPTX formats fully support the Microsoft Excel® XLSX and Microsoft PowerPoint® PPTX file types and content security policies of Office 2013 and higher.

Microsoft Office 2003 Support

See Get Windows 10, which has a customized compatibility report for each PC, and provides a unified compatibility view of a PC, its onboard devices, and applications. In WebFOCUS products, although you will still be able to start and work in Microsoft Office 2003 applications, Microsoft recommends that you upgrade to a later version of Office in order to continue to receive support and updates. If your organization uses Office 2003 with the Windows® XP operating system, see Support for Windows XP ended for information on the end of support for Microsoft Office 2003 and Windows XP SP3.

For information on opening, editing, and saving documents, workbooks, and presentations that were created in the later versions of Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint, see Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats.

WebFOCUS EXL2K and PPT Formats and Microsoft Office Viewer Products Support

Microsoft Excel Viewer and PowerPoint Viewer are read-only products. They permit only the display and printing of Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint data. The WebFOCUS EXL2K and PPT reports are not supported in any release of the Microsoft Excel Viewer and the Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer. The WebFOCUS XLSX and PPTX formatted reports are supported and can be viewed with the Microsoft Excel Viewer and Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer, respectively.

Microsoft has released statements that older releases of the Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint Viewer are no longer supported. For information on the supported versions of Microsoft Office Viewer products, see Supported versions of the Office viewers. The Microsoft Office Viewer is available from the Microsoft Download Center.

Microsoft Office 365 Support

Microsoft Office 365™ offers the local installation of Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint 2013. It works with the Office 2010 release and provides limited functionality with Office 2007. Microsoft Office 365 also permits uploading Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint files to the cloud, where they can be accessed on most devices using Office Online. For information on the Microsoft Office 365 plans and features, see Office 365 for business FAQ.

You can use Microsoft Office 365 to access WebFOCUS XLSX and PPTX reports. First, create the XLSX and PPTX reports locally as HOLD files, or display the reports on the screen using the PCHOLD command, and then save the reports to a local directory. The saved files can be uploaded and stored in OneDrive® for Business. Once uploaded to the cloud, the files can be accessed using Office Online.

For information on saving WebFOCUS reports, see the Creating Reports with WebFOCUS Language manual listed in Recommended Reading.

For information on the differences in features available in Excel Online and PowerPoint Online, and in Microsoft Office 2013, see Office Online Service Description.

For more information on working with Office Online and OneDrive for Business, see Using Office Online in OneDrive.

Usage Consideration When Using Hyperlinks to Run WebFOCUS Reports

Selecting a hyperlink in a WebFOCUS report, to execute a drill-down request to run a procedure on a secured WebFOCUS web environment, requires the security context or any session-related cookies to be inherited. Microsoft Office products do not natively inherit the security context or any session-related cookies created by a web-based application.

The following options are available to configure your web environment so that hyperlinks in WebFOCUS reports will be functional within Microsoft Office products.

  • Configure WebFOCUS authentication to allow anonymous access. For more information, see the WebFOCUS Security and Administration manual.
  • Use SSO with IIS/Tomcat Integrated Windows Authentication. Renegotiation occurs automatically and the Excel and PowerPoint reports display correctly.
  • As of WebFOCUS Release 8, the Remember Me feature can be enabled on the Sign-in page. If the end user uses the Remember Me feature, a persistent cookie is used. For more information on how Microsoft Office products handle session-related information, see Error message when clicking hyperlink in Office: "Cannot locate the Internet server or proxy server.

WebFOCUS DOC Format

The WebFOCUS standard for styled and printable documents is the Acrobat® PDF format. The WebFOCUS PDF format creates Acrobat PDF documents. The WebFOCUS DOC format produces a character-based file, not a Microsoft Word document.

Recommended Reading