DataPlus and Excel 2007
Microsoft released Excel 2007-its newest version of Excel. Because Excel is so important to the use of DataPlus, we have carefully reviewed this new product as it relates to DataPlus and CustomPlus, as well as the QueryPlus reporting system.
The differences between earlier versions of Excel and Excel 2007 are tremendous. The newer version is much faster, retrieves more data (eliminates the 64K row limitation) and provides functionality that our clients have been asking for, such as being able to multi-select items from the data elements, automatically finding duplicate items based off a field's value and etc.
With Excel's improvements, come substantial changes in the pivot functionality when compared to older versions. Because of this fact, your practice will require additional training. Furthermore, Microsoft Excel 2007 and previous versions are not compatible with each other. The compatibility mode that Excel 2007 provides (i.e. allowing files from both versions to be viewed) does not work well with with large pivot tables. CustomRefresh--our proprietary product that you use to auto refresh your reports each month--works on either version. CustomRefresh is not compatible with multiple versions of Excel (ie. Excel 2003 and Excel 2007 - Compatibility Mode).
Because of this compatibility mode issue, you have two choices regarding upgrading to the new version of Excel.
1. Make no change and stay on the current version of Excel (prior to Excel 2007).
2. Upgrade all of the users in your practice, who access CustomPlus or QueryPlus to the new version of Excel. The upgrade costs approximately $ 100.00.
Because of the new functionality and speed of Excel 2007, we recommend the upgrade--but that is your choice. If you choose to upgrade all of your users to the new Excel version, DataPlus will need to upgrade all of your reports to work with the new version of Excel, at a one time cost of $450.00. This includes one hour of training. We will be holding Webinar type introductory sessions for Excel 2007 starting in January.
If you choose to do nothing, and another user on your system is updated to Excel 2007, running in compatibility mode, it will break DataPlus. Fixing this problem will require custom services at the rate of $250.00 per hour to re-install all of your reports. This is not covered under your current support agreement.
Our goal is to provide a timely path to the new functionality offered by using Excel 2007. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to call our support team.
DataPlus Support
1-888-688-3282
