Importing An E07 List Into SharePoint Fails - Solution Seems Kinda Odd
Today I tried to create a new SharePoint List by importing a range of Excel data from my new original Vista machine with Office 3007 2007 XP1 installed. When I try to create a new "List from a Spreadsheet" from within SP, I get the "IOWSPostData failed" dialog.
So after several tries (shrinking the data set, saving as E03 format) I was still getting the same message. I checked Technet and received:
"There are no documents that match your search for "IOWSPostData""
Pasted from <http://support.microsoft.com/search/default.aspx?mode=r&query=IOWSPostData&catalog=LCID%3D1033&1033comm=1&spid=global>
So then I Googled the term "IOWSPostData" and immediately found many references to this problem. I found the following at http://www.tek-tips.com :
"I have copied the explanation here:
Importing lists from Excel 2007 returns a Method 'Post' of object 'IOWSPostData' failed dialog. Again, not really a problem with WSS 3.0 but rather the result of a failed Application.SharePointVersion() call in the Excel Add-In which results in Excel attempting to use the IOWSPostData.Post() method to publish the Excel range which is used with SharePoint Team Services 1.0. By forcing the version lookup result variable to 2 or greater, Excel will use SOAP to communicate with WSS 3.0 and the publish request will be successful. To make this change, open the Excel Add-In EXPTOOWS.XLA locate in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\1033 by default. Press Alt+F11 to display the Visual Basic code editor and search (Ctrl+F) for the line lVer = Application.SharePointVersion(URL). Comment out that line with a single quote and add the line lVer=2 so your Intialize() method should now look like this:
Sub Initialize(List, Title, URL, QuickLaunch)
strQuickLaunch = QuickLaunch
aTarget(iPublishURL) = URL
aTarget(iPublishListName) = List
aTarget(iPublishListDesc) = Title
'lVer = Application.SharePointVersion(URL)
lVer = 2
End Sub "
Pasted from <http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1330234&page=1>
Although in the end I had to use 3 instead of 2, this solution DID fix my problem and imported (eventually) my HUGE spreadsheet…
I have no problem with the fact of bugs in new software even from such a major software giant as Microsoft (stuff happens?) but my point here is:
- Why, once a problem obviously crops up - and one that one would think would be embarrassing and certainly not helpful to the potential target audience for SharePoint (i.e. Excel people like me ;-)), would Microsoft at least not have a KB article about the problem ?
- Why would the solution lie in an open, editable XLA (much like an old-fashioned INI file) sitting on the user's desktop (does the word "kludge" come to mind?) ?
- Why wouldn't this have been fixed in SP1 ?
- How would one expect a non-technical user (as opposed to a "Professional" such as myself ;-)) to react to such a problem and such a solution (that frankly requires a base knowledge of VBA)..
I don't understand why this problem is not more visible. Perhaps it is because of some bizarre configuration on my machine, hopefully it is NOT because not very many people are actually importing Excel Data into SP lists (??).
This problem began to appear during the Beta process in Jan 2007, and I found one comment from March of this year :
"It's hard to believe that Microsoft never tested importing an Excel 2007 spreadsheet into WSS 3.0, sp1."
Pasted from <http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2870872&SiteID=1>
With comments as recent as April 2008.
This strikes me as disappointing - Yes?
Dick