Monarch 10.5 with Context Now Available

[Gareth Horton]

Hi everyone,

We just announced the availability of Monarch 10.5.

This has some major new functionality (http://www.datawatch.com/_support/support_45.php) as well as bug fixes.

It's free to download (http://www.datawatch.com/_support/downloads_updates.php#MonarchDownloadableTools) for existing Monarch 10.x customers.

The press release is here (http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20091027005126&newsLang=en).

Please let us know what you think of the new Monarch Context functionality.

Thanks

Gareth

[JD.Ingram]

Thanks.

J. D. Ingram
Northwest Medical Speciaties
Tacoma, WA

[Carol]

Gareth,

Perhaps this is a product that I need, but I do not know how to "install" it. It simply sits on the desktop and when clicked offers me programs to open it.

I have tried copying it into my Excel Add-in folder but that does not seem to work either.

thank you for your time.

[OllyInMunich]

Hello Carol,

There's two components - the upgrade to the Monarch program, which you need to install on a machine wiith Monarch 10 already installed, and the Monarch Context Add-in for Excel.

The new Monarch 10.5 will let you export tables to Excel 2007 format (.xlsx) with the report data embedded in the spreadsheet.

You can then send these xlsx files to anyone with Excel 2007 (they also need Visual Studio Tools for Office Runtime, .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, but the Add-In will automatically download and install these components if not already installed). If you don't have Excel 2007 installed you won't be able to install the Add-In.

To install Add-Ins, try:

http://peltiertech.com/WordPress/installing-an-add-in-in-excel-2007/

HTH,

Olly

[Carol]

Thanks, Olly. I was not clear. I have downloaded and installed 10.5. I have downloaded the Excel Context. It is an odd file named "setup" with no extension. Double clicking on it brings up a "what to open with" dialog box which I close since I have no idea what it should be. I have previously installed Excel Addins.

I have dragged it into my Excel Addins folder and can see the odd Setup file there (yes, I have extensions enabled and see all the other extensions.)

I have opened Excel and navigated to the Add-in center and pressed the Excel add-ins "go", but do not see "setup" as an option.

I do not believe I have the file or it has not downloaded properly. We are having trouble with other file downloads.

Please tell me what the downloaded file should be named. Should I have to double click on it to setup and save to my Addins folder for Excel?
Thank you for your continuing help.

[Data Kruncher]

Hello Carol and Olly,

The Excel Monarch Context addin should be downloaded as a Windows executable file, named setup.exe. Perhaps it should be more properly named MonarchContextSetup.exe or some such to differentiate it a little better.

Carol, your Windows environment when viewing filenames in folders might be setup to suppress file extenstions from view. This is common.

You do not need to install the Monarch Context Add-in as you would a typical Excel add-in. My experience was that running the setup program by double-clicking it was sufficient, and following the normal setup wizard style that most Windows programs have did the job perfectly.

If double-clicking the file doesn't immediately launch the setup wizard, I'd suspect that the download was somehow corrupted during the transfer, and would try to download it again.

HTH,
Kruncher

[Data Kruncher]

Carol, I just saw your comment about having trouble with other downloads. It's possible that your firewall or (more likely) anti-virus software are causing this difficulty for you.

You might want to contact Datawatch support and request that they email the file to you, changing the file extension from .exe to .bak or something irregular. When you receive the file you can rename the file to .exe and run it.

[Carol]

Thanks Olly and Data Kruncher,

I ALWAYS change the Folder options of my Windows Explorer to show all hidden files and all extensions. That is why I was confused about the lack of file extension on this file.

I simply renamed my file from "setup" to setup.exe and it installed as it should have. I now see the Active Add-in "MonarchContext" in the View and Manage Microsoft Office Add-ins. In the Excel ribbon I see "Monarch" as an option.

We are in the process of swapping out our Firewall-IDP-Anti Virus router as it seems to be a bit capricious about file downloads.

thank you for your alacrity in answering. I shall experiment with this.

Carol

[Data Kruncher]

Excellent news. Glad to hear that you're on your way. Thanks for the update.

[Grant Perkins]

FWIW ....

I downloaded and installed the add-in. It took a while and said I needed to restart. So I did.

Nothing in Excel at all.

So on the off chance I tried a re-install and that started off the same way as before and then popped up another 'downloading' window, grabbed a small amount of stuff from somewhere and completed the task in seconds. Now all is well.

It's a bit of a puzzle but I assume that something for some reason did not quite work first time and was fixed at the second ask. I think the advice would be to re-run the add-in install if the first one has not produced a result. If that gives nothing ... go to plan C ...



Grant

[Carol]

I have experimented with this and find:

It only works on an Export to an Excel (new) file.

The Context option is greyed out when I need to export to a new TABLE on an existing Excel XLSM file.

Is this your understanding? That is will NOT work when exporting to a new Table on an existing Excel XLSM file?

Thanks.

[Data Kruncher]

IIRC, my testing yesterday indicated that you can only export to a new Excel file, be it XLSX or XLSM, so you've encountered the same result.

[Carol]

Thank you, Data Kruncher,

Perhaps it will be something we can look forward to on the next version. I am still waiting for information on my ver 10.01 where the Monarch export removes the conditional formatting as regards cell color after it is exported to an existing XLSM file. I have had to redo my conditional formatting to remove cell color and add outlining and font color to complete my work. I have reported it to Monarch.

[Patty]

Does V10.5 work with operating system Win XP Professional Version 2002 SP3? Thank you.

[Data Kruncher]

I'm using Win XP Pro Version 2002 SP2, so I'll say "Yes".

[Shannon]

Took me awhile, but thanks to this thread, I was able to get Monarch updated to 10.5 and the excel add in installed and working yesterday. Problem is that when I export my summaries from Monarch, there is not an option to display the source report in excel, it is greyed out. The only button available to click is the one that says Discover

I did check the box that says apply "advanced excel features" and I did export the summary to a new file. What am I missing? I was able to download the sample excel file and view the source data from that sample

[Data Kruncher]

Hi Shannon,

You can only use the Context feature, including the source report in the Excel file, when you export the Table. It's not an option when you export the summary only. The is because the Context feature is used to show the reviewer the individual matching records in the Table export and the original data source. The Context feature wouldn't be too useful if the reviewer saw aggregate values in the summary, and the numbers didn't tie back perfectly to the record that he or she finds in the attached report.

You should be able to append the summary to that file once it's been created by exporting the Table.

HTH,
Kruncher

[Shannon]

Thanks, it works. Didn't realize that it only worked for tables and only with reports, but still a usefull tool !

[xboxremote]

Wait, so this whole Excel Context Add-In only works when you export from the table view in Monarch? I'm pushing to get this update at my work because of this add-in, but it won't be very useful if this is the case. Unless I'm just understanding it incorrectly.

I understand that seeing "summarized" data with the context add-in would be useless because often times you're summing or counting or doing some sort of function on the data (therefore, you cannot pinpoint one point in the report from which a particular number comes from). However, at my work, we use the summaries for a different purpose:

We have reports for a 12-month period from which we grab all sorts of data. However, no one here (or anywhere, I'd imagine) likes looking at data with the date as a field itself. If you want to analyze a number throughout a fiscal period, you would have to find 12 different rows within the table. Even with sorting, it's still a pain. So, using summaries, we pivot (crosstab) that data, so that each month is across the top as their own fields, and each row contains 12 months of data, one for each field kind of like this...



ACCOUNT # | ACCOUNT NAME | REVENUE | OCTOBER | NOVEMBER | DECEMBER | JANUARY |
1234567 Xboxremote $1,500.20 $1,200.20 $987.86 $800.00 $765.20
5382968 Data Kruncher $45,201.50 $43,110.58 $40,080.90 $39,399.21 $35,521.50


(That didn't turn out as well as it looked when I was typing it, but you get the idea)

However, we don't actually SUM anything. There is only one occurence of each month per ACCOUNT/ACCOUNT NAME combination. Everyone here is very familiar with Excel, so we export our summaries to Excel for analysis, and for uploading to our databases. So, while they are analyzing the numbers in Excel, I want them to be able to click a button that will take them to the exact number they are looking for in the source report. I was hoping this was the solution, but it doesn't appear to be, unless somebody has an idea... Any ideas? The help is very much appreciated. And again, I may just be misunderstanding, so if I am and someone could explain further, that would be perfect. Thanks!

[MicRav]

Need a little help. I downloaded the Monarch context AddIn (I am using Excel 2007), but all 3 options [Display-Report-Remove] in the Monarch AddIn Ribbon are grayed out.

Any idea to what may be the cause. I can see and click the add-in menu, but only the discover option can be accessed.

Thanks
MicRav

[Joey]

Are you opening an Excel spreadsheet that Monarch created with the Conext option enabled?

[othni]

From an IT point of view, I want to be able to deploy this tool to many users (computers) within my company that will receive Excel files with reports embedded.

I need a way to deploy this remotely and silently.

Any ideas?

[mdyoung]

In addition to Othni's question, is the add-in tool compatible with Excel 2010 running on Windows 7?

[elginreigner]

mdyoung, yes. I have used it in Excel 2010 on a win 7 64bit machine.