Replacement of Excel Sheet Appender

[xeniaay]

I’m using KNIME version 4.3 and found that the Excel Sheet Appender node is gone. Is there a replacement node for Excel Sheet Appender? Or should I use the new Excel Writer to append sheets and set the sheet name as flow variable?

Appreciate any help on this.

Thanks!

Xenia

[izaychik63]

Excel Writer got an append option. Also, interesting question if you want to overwrite existing page or add new one with advanced name 01 so on.

[Mark_Ortmann]

In the sheet name section you can select whether you want to fail or overwrite existing sheets in case you append to an existing excel file. Soon you’ll also see an append option there to add rows to an existing sheet.

What are your thoughts / feedback on this and yes we decided to remove the sheet appender and replace it by the append option in the writer.

Best
Mark

[izaychik63]

I currently can only asses the decision by itself. It sounds destructive to some extent. To compensate this, a migration tool for Excel nodes needs to be provided.

[Mark_Ortmann]

What do you mean by destructive?

[izaychik63]

I mean that excluding nodes without equivalent alternative is destructive. I still suffer from Database looping exclusion as it was 10 times faster than alternative.

[supersharp]

@xeniaay - were you able to resolve this? In order to append with the new Excel Writer, here is a sample of the setup. It has the equivalent function as the old Sheet Appender.

Cheers!

[xeniaay]

@supersharp Yes I realize that there’s the Write options available for me to choose “append”. BTW, it seems that the “open after execution” is missing in the new Excel Writer. Is it correct?

Thanks
Xenia

[mlauber71]

@xeniaay

BTW, it seems that the “open after execution” is missing in the new Excel Writer. Is it correct?

Yes that is the case:

Option to open file after Excel Writer execution

Hello riddhisanghoi, we have removed this option from the new Excel Writer for two main reasons. The writer can now write to many different file systems including remote where we can not open the file with your local running Excel program. In addition the option would not work when the workflow is executed on the KNIME Server where KNIME is executed without a user interface. For which use case do you need this option? Would it be also ok if we provide you with a Component on the KNIME Hub that…

But maybe there is a way how to do it anyway:

How to Launch Excel

I was able to get Excel to launch by using this command in the Bash node: cmd /c "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\EXCEL.EXE" and unchecking the Propagate stderr to Exception box. I hadn’t ever tried the CmdwInput node before, but was able to get it to work in the same way by providing the command above as an input string with a Table Creator.

[sscholz]

Dear All,
it seems that another important feature is missing as well. I cannot load the file name as a variable (e.g. to use an input file from the workflow and attach a sheet). This option is greyed, but still works with the depreceated excel sheet appender. Could the latter not be still maintained, given that automatic execution of excel file is a very important function. If you create a number of evalution sheets and write them into an excel file for reporting, it is very convenient to open this excel file immediately an browse through the different sheets.
Stefan

[mlauber71]

@sscholz

I cannot load the file name as a variable (e.g. to use an input file from the workflow and attach a sheet)

you will have to use the new Path variables.

This workflow demonstrates how to use the new Excel Reader and path variables...

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