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Excel file is corrupted when there is no data in the report
Posted Apr 19, 2022
Hi,
I have noticed that when a Dashboard is sent or downloaded, where there is no data available at the moment (no tickets met the query conditions/requirements), the file cannot be open and Excel says it is corrupted.
Example:
Dashboard:
When I open the file which has been sent(scheduled delivery or downloaded), I got this error:
I would like to have a possibility to open the file (even if it is empty) or notice to the recipients that the file is empty so they will not receive anything from this Dashboard.
It is important for us to have this because of two situations:
1. Some of the reports are being sent to emails, where an automatic job is done. When this job received the corrupted file, it will fail until someone will not enable it again.
2. When upper managers get the corrupted files on their mailbox, they requests often fix the issue and re-sent the reports, or thinking that the email is a phishing and reporting this.
It would be good to have the possibility to not send the report via scheduled delivery if there is no data available at the moment and sent only a message instead (without the attached file).
For now, our workaround is to attach in the message wording that if it is corrupted it is probably empty (for managers).
But for the automatic jobs on the files, we have to schedule multiple deliveries and build a few same dashboards to exclude times where the job might receive the corrupted files.
Thanks
6
6 comments
Gwyn Davis
100% agree with this post, we have dashboards/schedules in place to provide daily reports to users within the business so this issue is being raised internally on a regular basis.
A better user experience would be to create a blank report with the headings intact.
2
Magdalena Wierzbicka - Customer Success Developer
I agree too! This would be good if there wasn´t a "corrupted file" message. We love the functionality of the reporting and are willing to make the most of it, but going forward this will be something being raised regularly.
1
Elene Peck
Hi,
Just wonder why the excel file generated by Zendesk Explore is showing as corrupted when there is no data that satisfied the criteria/query? This is very misleading and is there a workaround for it?
Is this a known issue? Thank you.
1
Robert Hood
Agree will everything stated previously. A blank worksheet with headers would be better than a file that throws the error and can't be opened. The error messages causes too many questions from my end-users and kills any automated processes I have place when the file cannot be opened.
1
Juli Hackenberger
We are having the same issue. If we have a report that does not have any tickets that meet the criteria we get a "corrupted file". It causes a lot of questions and while easily explained, every time it happens, someone has to take time to verify the report just doesn't have any matching tickets and that it is not an error.
0
Wojciech Smajda
Hey Marta,
I appreciate you bringing this situation to our attention regarding the difficulties you're experiencing with opening exported dashboard files when there's no data available.
To troubleshoot this, please ensure that your filters are set up correctly. Unused filters should be disabled to avoid configuring unnecessary constraints that might result in an empty report. Additionally, there's a new export beta that you might find useful. Exploring these options could potentially mitigate the issue you are facing with the exported files.
0