Export to Excel loses hyperlinks

Dennis M Wierzbicki

I've read a lot about how hyperlinks hidden behind texts will not export to Excel from Smartsheet.

Are there any workarounds for this?

I have a report that collates 170 schedules, and the Sheet Name column contains a link to each respective sheet, which is great, if I remain within Smartsheet. However, we are using Power BI to aggregate data from several sources, including this report, and we want the hyperlinks to appear in Power BI, but they are lost when I export to Excel.

Any ideas?

Julio S.

Hi @Dennis M Wierzbicki, 

As you highlight, exporting or publishing a report won't preserve the autogenerated hyperlinks in the "Sheet name" column of that report. When you have a moment, please let our Product team know about your feedback by filling in this form, here. Thank you!

Although I haven't been able to test this in PowerBi, links can be preserved in Dashboards when the Report is published there through a report widget. If you are able to publish that Dashboard in PowerBi, it is likely that the links are also preserved in there.

If this isn't possible, the only alternative that I can think of would be to create a sheet directory where you manually create the hyperlinks to each sheet and publish it in PowerBi as needed

I hope that this can offer some insights.

Cheers!

Julio

Dennis M Wierzbicki

Julio, thanks for the response. I published my report, and the hyperlinks disappeared in Smartsheet. I only got the text. Not sure about your recommendation to publish to a dashboard, as I don't believe a dashboard can be used as a data source in Power BI, and besides, had the same issue - no hyperlinks.

Julio S.

Hi Dennis,

I am not sure whether you published your Report in a Dashboard via a Web Content Widget (which uses the publish version of the Report) or a Report Widget which I could confirm in my testing that will display the sheet links accordingly at least in Smartsheet.

Since I do not have an instance of PowerBi I wasn't able to test whether the Dashboard with the Report Widget can then be published in PowerBi and whether or not it will preserve those links. But if these aren't suitable options, I would try with the third recommendation of building a sheet directory with hyperlinks to the relevant sheets or maybe even a Dashboard with a Shortcut Widget to all needed items.

Cheers!

Julio

Dennis M Wierzbicki

Now I'm confused. I published the report to a URL, then displayed it in the dashboard using that URL. I no case was the hyperlink preserved.

Julio S.

That sounds like you may have published the Report via Web Content Widget which requires a publish URL. When the Report is published via URL, the links to the sheets won't be preserved. Therefore, I am suggesting to try and use a Report Widget instead which doesn't need the publish URL. Using the Report Widget will allow you to add the Report as a Smartsheet object and the links should be preserved at least in the Dashboard. If this continues to be confusing, please include some screenshots of your Dashboard (hiding any confidential information) and the Widget type used.

Dennis M Wierzbicki

Hmm, ok, thanks. Maybe I don't understand the difference between the Web Content Widget and the Report Widget, and how to get to the latter.

Dennis M Wierzbicki

I think I may not be understanding what you're saying, Julio. I go the the ribbon bar on the right and create a report. I Include the "Sheet Name" primary column, which contains the name of the sheets and the underlying hyperlink. I then export this report to Excel, and as always, the hyperlinks disappear.

Julio S.

Hi Dennis,

Apologies if my answers were confusing. I now understand where communications weren't sufficiently clear. Since the export functionality that you are trying won't preserve the links, I encouraged you to request this functionality though the feedback form and suggested creating a Smartsheet Dashboard as a possible alternative - Please review this article if you'd like to know more about Dashboards.

Within the Dashboard, you'll have the option of add different Widgets and one of them - the Report Widget (see this article for more information) - will allow you to add a direct link to the specific Report that you are trying to publish and then export without the need to do so where the sheet links will be preserved.

The part that I wasn't able to test was to add its content in PowerBi by publishing the Dashboard (not the Report) and whether the links to the sheets would also be available in PowerBi since the data would be made available through a publish link or embed code. Please see this article if you wish to know more about publishing Dashboards.

Regards,

Julio

Dennis M Wierzbicki

Julio,

Thanks. It's becoming a little clearer. So, when you say "will allow you to add a direct link to the specific Report that you are trying to publish", do you mean just the report URL, and not the URL of the report I published?

Dennis M Wierzbicki

Ok, I used the dashboard report widget to display the report. I then published the dashboard, but the resulting published dashboard cannot be exported.

Dennis M Wierzbicki

Are you saying to import this published report directly into Power BI? What I have been trying to do is export the Smartsheet items to Excel, then import these data into Power BI.

Julio S.

Dennis,

What I mean is to publish the Dashboard (after adding the Report Widget) and using that link to publish the data in PowerBi if it's possible.

Dennis M Wierzbicki

Ah, ok. Well, I'm working on the Smartsheet report for somebody else to use in Power BI, so I don't have the ability to test if this works. Thanks for your help anyway, Julio.