Configuration

After installation, launch “Excel Refresher Admin Console” (Start -> Programs). This console allows you to select which folders contain the Excel files to be refreshed. Multiple folders may be selected.
The refresher service will periodically scan for XLSX files in these folders, and refresh any files where the Date Modified is old enough to suggest that the file needs refreshing. The assumption here is that if users have recently modified the file, then they would have refreshed the data using Excel’s “Refresh All”.

The Content status string consists of 3 parts: Schedule[;Backup][;Priority]
Where:

• Schedule: Daily | Weekly | StartOfMonth | EndOfMonth
• Backup: ArchiveSameFolder | ArchiveSubFolder
• Priority: MaximumPriority | VeryHighPriority | etc..

Setting the Refresh Schedule

Each Excel file is refreshed on a schedule determined by the value of the file’s Content Status property. If you’re unfamiliar with this property, then open Windows Explorer, select any Excel file and look at the Details Pane (bottom) – one of the file properties shown is Content Status.
You may set the Content Status property to any of the following:

• Always – the Excel file is refreshed every time the service wakes up.
• Hourly – the Excel file is refreshed if the Date Modified is more than an hour ago.
• Daily – the Excel file is refreshed if the Date Modified is more than 6 hours ago.
• Weekly – the Excel file is refreshed if the Date Modified is more than 5 days ago.
• Monthly – the Excel file is refreshed if the Date Modified is more than 30 days ago.
• Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday – the file is refreshed once on that day.
• Start Of Month - the file is refreshed once on the 1st day of each month.
• End Of Month - the file is refreshed once on the last day of each month.

Refresh Priorities

Reports can be prioritized relative to one another, so that more important reports are refreshed sooner. The available refresh priorities are:
• Maximum Priority
• Very High Priority
• High Priority
• Normal Priority
• Low Priority
• Lowest Priority

!!Auto Archive Feature
Archiving capability is baked in, which effectively creates a copy of a report after it has been refreshed. To use this feature, add one of the following phrases to Content Status:
Archive Same Folder : After the report is refreshed, a copy is created using the naming template [Original File Name].[YYYY-MM-DD HHhMM].xlsx
Archive Sub Folder : After the report is refreshed, a copy is created in a sub-directory that has the same name as the report.

!!Content Status Examples
The following content status examples are all valid:
• Start Of Month;Archive Same Folder
• Daily;High Priority
• endofmonth;Low Priority
• Daily;ArchiveSubFolder;MaximumPriority

Parallel Processing

The admin console allows you to set how many files are processed in parallel. We've been successfully running 9 parallel instances of Excel in a production environment.