Failed to Generate Excel error when trying to Export Data from Advanced Find

Here is the most common issues seen while trying to Export data to Excel from an Advanced Find view. And you end up seeing this error which says ‘Failed to Generate Excel’ –

error

Getting the Error

  1. So this is what you typically do – When you run an Advanced Find and click on Export when you see the results
    exportofaccounts
  2. Or, when you are in an entity’s view and you want to Export to Excel right from the ribbon button like this –
    exportfromview
  3. But, as soon as the File is being generated and you feel you’re there –
    generating
  4. You see this –
    error

 

Culprit

The reason for this is – Redundant Display Names of the fields used in the View you are exporting
duplicatedisplaynames

How to catch this

The easiest way to catch this is trying to Export the view to Excel Online, this will give you the exact error
exacterror
The Downloaded Log File won’t help much in identifying the column that is duplicate though, you’ll need to go through the Columns manually to check

 

Hope this helps! 🙂

 

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Use Learning Path for your D365 v9.x Organization – Part 2 | Sidebar

Sidebar is a component in Learning Path where you can design a Sidebar that appears like a tray popping from the right side of the screen. You can have quick help items in it so that new users to D365 can use it to get help on the most frequently requested items in your Organization.

Before you begin, you can check my post i.e. Part 1 post of this series on setting up Learning Path in D365 – Use Learning Path for your D365 v9.x Organization – Part 1 | Setup

Also, check out Guided Tasks in this blog post – Use Learning Path for your D365 v9.x Organization – Part 3 | Guided Tasks

In my last, I setup Learning Path in D365 Org, let’s take a look at designing one of the aspects of Learning Path i.e. Sidebar

Creating a Sidebar in Learning Path

  1. Assuming you have gone through the setup of Learning Path and you are now navigated in your Org to Training > Content Library. Content Library is open and you need to select Sidebar
    createSidebar
  2. On opening the same, you’ll be asked to set preferences of what should the details of the Sidebar be
    sidebarProp
  3. On clicking Save, a designer pane will open on the right hand side of the Page like so
    editorOpened

Designing your Sidebar

Now, let’s put a few items on the Sidebar and publish it to see how it looks

  1. I’ve given a suitable Title to my sidebar, I’ll call it CFT117 Helpdesk for now. Then, when I want to first item, I’ll click on Section #1 below that and a Pencil and Delete icon will appear. I will select the Pencil Icon to start editing my first section
    editingSection1
  2. On clicking the Pencil, a menu to show what all I can add appears, for example, I select List of Links (I will just give link to a website here)
    selectContent1
  3. Once I select List of Links, editor to add Links will appear. I’ve given a title to it called as Visit Company Website and I’ll select + Add Link as shown below
    addLink
  4. After clicking on Add Link as in #3 above, I get options to specify what the link will do. For example, I’ll select Webpage since I want to redirect to the company website
    defineLink
    linkDetails
  5. After I click Next, the first Link will be set and will appear like this.
    linkSet
  6. Next, I’ll select to add a Video (you can select what you want to show in subsequent sections as mentioned in step #2 above).
    So, I’ve given a title ‘Using PSA’ and entered the URL of the video I wanted to show. Finally, my section will look like this
    videoProperties
  7. After everything is done, I’ll click on Save
    saveSidebar

Publishing Changes

  1. Next, on the button left, you can select Preview.
    preview
  2. Once someone clicks help, this is how the pane will look. Finally, if you’ve decided to publish it, you can click on Publish button on the bottom left
    previewShown
  3. And you can select which all Orgs you want to publish this Sidebar to –
    publishControls
  4. On confirmation, it will tell you that the content has been published successfully.
    published

Using Sidebar

Now, our Sidebar is ready. And once the user clicks on the Help Icon on the top right as shown below –
clickHelp

They’ll see the Sidebar as you designed
sidebarDisplayed

 

Excuse me for the unusually lengthy post. Hope this helps! Learning Path – Part 3 – Guided Tasks has been published too – Use Learning Path for your D365 v9.x Organization – Part 3 | Guided Tasks!