Refreshing Reports

To refresh a report, you must:

Be connected to your org and have retrieved the report from its source. If you have not retrieved any reports, the Refresh button is not available.
Have permission to run the report in your org. If you are connected to a report which you do not have permission to use, refreshing the report fails.

When you refresh a report, XL Plus creates a new Microsoft Excel® worksheet containing the data. A header area shows the name of the report, its ID, and the date and time it was refreshed. If you have applied simple filters or prompts, they are visible at the top of the report.

Note:

You cannot change the name of a lens.

Performing a Refresh

Note: The Salesforce Analytics Timeseries feature is not supported in XL Plus. If you use this feature in a lens and then load that lens from XL Plus, an error message is displayed.

To refresh reports:

Ensure that you are connected to your org and you have retrieved the reports you want to work with. If you have not retrieved any reports, the Refresh button is disabled. For more information, see Connecting to Data Sources.
Click Refresh in the Source group. The Refresh Sources window appears showing a list of your connected reports.
Click Refresh All to refresh all listed reports. A beside a report indicates that the report was refreshed. A beside a report indicates that the report was not refreshed.
[Optional] Apply individual actions to your selected reports:

Click to refresh the report.
Click to stop refreshing the report (when a refresh is in progress).
Click to reverse the signs of a Salesforce or Reporting report (not available for Action Views or Analytics reports). See Reversing the Signs for more information.
Click to clear the settings of a Salesforce or Reporting report. You can also click Clear All to clear the settings of all listed reports.

Close the Refresh Sources window.
Reapply any calculated fields such as sum, average, maximum, minimum, or grand totals.

Note:

XL Plus uses Salesforce permission sets. If you do not see the data that you expect, contact your Administrator.

When refreshed, each worksheet is treated independently within XL Plus. For example, if you have used the same Salesforce report to create two personal reports with different names, you can re-refresh one of the worksheets without affecting the other.

Refreshing a report counts towards your Salesforce API Usage Limits. See the Salesforce Help for more information.

Note:

Changes to reports in XL Plus are not written back to the associated template in the org. However, you can change the filter value of an action views template in XL Plus to retrieve a different set of data based on the new filter value.

Refreshed Data and Filters

When you refresh a report, XL Plus refreshes the data as if you ran the report in the org, and uses the filter configured in the XL Plus report. If the configuration of a filter is changed in your org, XL Plus disregards the new filter when you refresh your data again.

If a simple filter or prompt is used in a connected Salesforce, Reporting, or Action Views report, it is visible at the top of the refreshed data. For Analytics reports, the filters are visible above the relevant column in the related sheet in Microsoft Excel. You can change the filter value to any of those available in the connected report by clicking the filter cell. See "Editing Filters in Connected Reports" below for more information.

Note:

Do not change the operator of a filter because the report will fail the next time you refresh it.

Apply filters or prompts in XL Plus using Salesforce or Reporting rules. For example, using commas within filters causes the filter to be ignored. If you have problems with a XL Plus report, try running the report on your platform using the same criteria.

When using an Equal operator to retrieve a list of values, ensure that you enclose each value with quotation marks and separate values with a comma followed by a space. For example, to view sales revenues for Milan, London, Paris, and Granada from the Dimension1 object, you would use “Milan”, “London”, “Paris”, “Granada”.

If you apply more Microsoft Excel filters, they do not affect the report in your org.

Note:

If your Salesforce report uses a cross filter, row limit, or date filter, they are applied to the data accordingly. However, the filters are not visible in XL Plus for amendment.

Warning:

The layout of reports changed prior to V3. When you upgrade from V2 to V3, macros are not affected. However, an upgrade from V1 to V2 may require you to edit the macros to refer to the correct cells if you use macros that reference the old cells.

Editing Filters in Connected Reports

To edit the filters of a connected report in XL Plus:

Click the filter cell and modify the value as required. You can change the filter value to any of the values available in the connected report.
Click Refresh in the Source group. The Refresh Sources window appears showing a list of your connected reports.
Click Refresh All to refresh all listed reports or click next to an individual report to refresh only that report.
Close the Refresh Sources window.

The new results of your filter appear in the related sheet. The changes you make to the filters of a report in XL Plus do not affect the related report in your org.

Notes:

Do not add or remove filters or change the operator of a filter in the sheet. If you do, the report will fail the next time you refresh it.
If you add or remove a filter in an Analytics lens that you are working with in XL Plus, you need to remove the sheet from Microsoft Excel and refresh the report again to retrieve the new filter configuration. If you do not remove the sheet, the report will fail the next time you refresh it.

Saving Worksheets

To stop a sheet of data being overwritten the next time you refresh the data, edit the worksheet tab name using standard Microsoft Excel functionality. For example, this output worksheet of the Accountslist3 report has been renamed Direct Q1:

Worksheet tab name