Excel Hyperlink

Thanks @takashi for immediate response, I will check and get back to you.

But I felt this is weird operation by FME. Dropping attributes is equivalent of changing the schema. When it dropped ".hyperlink" attributes, FME didn't even shown RED colour in attribute manager or FME didn't even halted the translation by saying error.

I hope, changing of schema (By FME) without any information/error because of change of filename is not desired by any FME professional. I feel, this is an another BIG bug in 2018 version other than workspace runner, I observed.

I was not able to reproduce the issue.

The attachment contains two workspaces and some Excel files: read-excel-hyperlink.zip (FME 2018.1.2)

Firstly I created the workspace "read-excel-hyperlink.fmw" that reads "data.xlsx" with checking on the "Read hyperlink" option and also setting "Use Current Settings" to the Additional File Settings parameter when adding the Excel reader, and the workspace "read-excel-hyperlink-runner.fmw" contains a WorkspaceRunner which runs the first workspace to read other Excel files saved under the source folder.

In my testing, the Excel reader read hyperlinks from all the files as expected.

Hi @pratap,

Thank you for making such a detailed document to explain the problem. I've done some testing and think I see where the confusion is. In this case, what you see is not what you get, and we should change that (this is already tracked in a ticket). Although, the actual outcome does seem to be what we expect. Let me explain:

• When you first add the reader, make sure "Additional File settings" is set to "Use Current Settings", as Takashi suggested. This is the key to get our expected outcome from the reader.
• Run the workspace with prompt, and change the source dataset to a different xlsx file.
• Inspect the result, you'll see that the .hyperlink attribute is read correctly (not missing). When I tested with both b18586 (same build you used to build the workspace above), and b19232, this is the behaviour I saw.
• The confusion occurs, when you update the reader, and check the parameter settings. Because "Read Hyperlink" parameter is unchecked. We will make the change to have the visible parameter setting reflect what will happen without user intervention, so to remove this confusion. And I will add your question here as supporting evidence for the proposed change.

Hopefully, this matches your experience. Please let me know if you have any more problems or feedback on this issue.

Hi @pratap, Thank you for the suggestion. I appreciate in your scenario, using the current setting is more desirable.

It is possible to save your desired settings as a Preset, and make it the default:

• Save presets following the screenshot example below.
• Make sure to check the "Preferred Default Set" box, if you want this setting to be loaded as default, every time you add an Excel reader.
• You can create multiple presets, and one of them as the default.

   

  

This allows every user to have their most used set up as their default, without changing the behaviour for all other users. Hope this works for you? Let me know if you have any more feedback or suggestions. Thank you again!