How can I open a FIMS report in Microsoft Excel

If you have run a report from FIMS that you'd like to open in Excel, follow these steps:

• From the FIMS report viewer save the file by choosing File > Save As.   Make sure you make a note of where you are saving the file and what you are calling it.  The file will be in text format and you cannot change that format at this point (i.e. you cannot save the file in an Excel format here).
• Open Excel and choose File > Open.  The Import Wizard will open.  FIMS reports are fixed width reports.  Typically, the Import Wizard will already choose this option for you.
  • Change the Start import at row to the row number where the column headings are.   You can see what the row number is in the preview window at the bottom of that screen.  Click Next.
  • Step 2 will allow you to set the field widths.   Excel tries to figure them out, but sometimes does not set them correctly.   Using your mouse, double-click to remove lines, click to add lines, or click and drag the lines to set your field widths.  Click Next.
  • Step 3 allows you to choose what format each column should be.   For most data, the General format will be fine.   However, you can choose different formats if needed.   For example, click on a Date column to change the date format.   If you have a Zip Code column, and any Zip Codes may start with zero, be sure to format that column as Text, otherwise Excel will remove the leading zero.   Click Finish.

Note: If you try to open the file directly, perhaps by right clicking on it and selecting Open in Excel, Excel makes assumptions about the file and opens it up.  The wizard does not appear.  Sometimes opening directly into Excel will work, other times it won't.  If you want to always be able to open your file in Excel, open Excel first.