DS to Excel smart service

Question

Hi All , 
 
 Currently we are using DS to excel smart service to download excel file from the grid based on filters . 
 
 Problem : In The downloaded excel file lets say Column A is of type TEXT (Its CDT field type is Text in appian ) . Now the business wants it to be integer type in Column A in the downloaded Excel file . 
 
 Pre-requiste : We dont want to change the appian cdt type of that field into integer . 
 
 Regards, 
 Vetri V

Mike Schmitt · Answer

We can provide the excel base template in "Document to update" field 
 I've tried this and it does not work how you think. The formatting in the Document to Update gets completely overwritten with unformatted information once the smart service is run. Additionally it's hard to use a base template for this use case because the file passed in will be overwritten with the new version, whereas document generation smart services that take in a base template always leave the original template file untouched and create a new output file instead.

Raghuvaran Nagarajan · Answer

vetrivelk , 
 With the new OOTB Export DS to excel smart service you can't control the formatting of the excel workbook columns. It will be set based on the source CDT's (table/view) field type. If you are using a table entity on this smartservice, I would recommend creating a view (it can be just select * ) for the table and using a new CDT only for document generation. 
 Because if there is any expectation to do basic formatting on the excel content like displaying date/time in a specific format or displaying Boolean as TEXT then these formatting has to be done in the view and appian will just export it. 
 Thanks, Raghu

DS to Excel smart service

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