July 2007
These instructions are for those who are using Crystal Ball 7.3 or 7.3.1 with Excel 2007.
Note: Crystal Ball 7.2.2 and earlier versions of Crystal Ball are not supported on either of these Excel platforms.
Excel 2007 supports three main new XML-based file formats:
By default, any new workbooks created in Excel 2007 are created in one of these file formats. There are other formats for add-ins and templates, but these are the only relevant Excel 2007 formats for workbooks.
You can also open older Excel 97-2003 workbooks with file extension XLS in Excel 2007. These older workbooks are opened in a special compatibility mode (identified by "[Compatibility Mode]" after the filename in the window title) so you can operate on them in much the same manner as with newer file formats. You cannot, however, use any of the new Excel 2007 features such as the expanded grid size, new chart types, and so on.
You can use Excel 2007's Save As command to convert your older XLS files to one of the new file formats or, optionally, to convert the new formats to XLS.
This version of Crystal Ball stores its data in a new format within Excel 2007 files. Older Crystal Ball data formats are converted to the new format the first time you perform a Save or Save As command in Excel 2007. Crystal Ball must be loaded when you save the file.
Before converting older XLS files to one of the new Excel 2007 formats, we recommend that you keep backup copies of your older workbooks for safekeeping.
With Excel 2003 and earlier, a model created on an English-language version of Windows with English Analysis Toolpak functions was not portable to other language environments since the function name would not be recognized. This is no longer a problem in Excel 2007 since the Analysis Toolpak is a part of the core XLL.
Microsoft offers an Office 2007 Compatibility Pack (available as a separate download from Microsoft’s website). This Pack was designed to allow Office 2003 users to open, edit, and save data in the new Office 2007 formats. The use of the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack with Crystal Ball 7.3 or 7.3.1 is not recommended. For best results, Crystal Ball 7.3.x users can share data between Excel 2003 and 2007 using the .xls format.
Crystal Ball 7.2.2 and earlier cannot read data created by this version of Crystal Ball in the new Excel 2007 formats. To maintain compatibility with users of Crystal Ball 7.2.2 or earlier versions running in Excel 2003, you should keep your workbooks as XLS files (Excel 97-2003 format).
If users open an Excel 2007 file in Crystal Ball 7.2.2 and attempt to define assumption data, this error message appears:
You must first save your workbook 'name' in a new file format (Excel 97 or later).
Crystal Ball 7.2.2 users cannot create the specified XLS file themselves. Instead, they must obtain a version of the file saved in XLS format from a Crystal Ball 7.3 user.
Be sure Crystal Ball 7.3 or 7.3.1 is open whenever you save an Excel 2007 model with Crystal Ball data as an XLS file to share with 7.2.2 users.
Warning: If you are saving to .xls format, be sure it is Excel 97-2003 format and not the earlier version. If you accidentally save it to Excel 5.0 or Excel 95 .xls format when Crystal Ball is not open, data is lost.
To convert your XLS workbooks to one of the new file formats, we recommend that you first create a backup copy of the XLS workbook and then follow these steps:
If you saved your XLS workbooks to one of the new file formats without Crystal Ball 7.3.x loaded, you may see the following warning message:
This workbook contains one or more of the following features that are not supported by the selected file format:
* Script objects
To save the workbook without these features, click OK.
To keep using these features, click Cancel, and then select a file format that supports these features.
This message is normal and you should click OK to proceed with the operation. Crystal Ball will convert its data to the Excel 2007 format the next time you save the file with Crystal Ball 7.3.x loaded.
Note: Pre-7.0 Crystal Ball data is converted in Excel 2007, even if you save it back to an .xls file. If you open a workbook created in Crystal Ball 2000.x (5.x) in Excel 2007 with Crystal Ball loaded, the data is converted to Crystal Ball 7.x format. Even if you save it back to a workbook with .xls extension, the Crystal Ball data remains in Crystal Ball 7.x format. To preserve the Crystal Ball data in pre- 7.0 format, avoid opening the workbook in Excel 2007. However, if you open a workbook created in Crystal Ball 2000.x (5.x) in Excel 2007 without Crystal Ball loaded, and then save it to an Excel 2007 format, the Crystal Ball data is lost.
You can also convert XLS workbooks to the new Excel 2007 formats using the Convert command under the Office button. Crystal Ball data is converted to the Crystal Ball 7.3.x format as soon as the workbook is saved.
The Convert command, however, has a side effect of removing the older XLS file in the process. We recommend that you use the Save As command to maintain a backup copy of the XLS file.
In a few rare cases, there is potential to lose Crystal Ball data during a series of conversion processes.
To avoid virtually all problems, have Crystal Ball 7.3.x open whenever files with Crystal Ball data are opened and saved.
If you do this, you will probably never experience these difficulties. However, you should be aware of the following cases so you can avoid them.
Avoid this situation because data loss could occur if you :
Avoid this situation because data loss could occur if you :
If one of these scenarios occurs, please contact our technical support department for further assistance at helpdesk@crystalball.com.
If your organization uses Excel Services with the Microsoft SharePoint Server, you can publish Excel workbooks with Crystal Ball data to the SharePoint Server in XLSX and XLSB formats for sharing with other Microsoft Office users or opening in Web browsers. The workbooks must be converted to XLSX or XLSB format before they are published. The Crystal Ball data is retained in the published workbooks. However, you can't run Crystal Ball simulations in the Web browser.
If you are using a computer with multiple processors -- for example, dual cores -- you can use a new "multi-threaded" option in Excel 2007 to split up spreadsheet model recalculations into separate tasks. These tasks can then be run independently on each processor to speed up the overall recalculation time. Since time for one calculation is reduced, the time to run an entire simulation is also reduced.
To activate multi-threading in Excel 2007:
Note: To use multi-threading efficiently, you should be working with a spreadsheet model that: