Showing posts with label Columns in Edit in Datasheet View are read-only. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Columns in Edit in Datasheet View are read-only. Show all posts

25 June, 2009

Columns in Edit in Datasheet View are read-only

Few Days before, we encountered a weird error message, not error we can say but normal properly working list or document library turned out to be readable only and we were not able to edit anything by using datasheet.
In standard view, it worked properly but our users wanted to use datasheet view only because they are more comfortable with that view and also it is more flexible to apply the metadata for multiple documents in datasheet view. I tried to reproduce the issue and strange thing is i am also facing the same behavior.

After lots to research and troubleshooting, we are able to find out the cause as well as resolution.

CAUSE:
User was using Office 2003 and then later installed an Office 2007 component so the Windows SharePoint Service Support tool portion of Office defaulted to using the Office 2007 version. Office 2007 will by default use Access instead of Excel for opening lists in Datasheet view. The types of columns that were being used in the list did not translate correctly to Access from Excel and so were changed to read-only.

This issue is by design and Microsoft is working on this one:

WORKAROUND:
This will in effect remove the Office 2007 integration with SharePoint and change it back to using Office 2003 integration.

On the client machine:-
1.   Go to Add/Remove Programs
2.   Select the Office 2007 component, if there are more than one, do this for each of them.
3.   Select “Change” and then Add or Remove Features Expand the Office Tools section and
4.   Change the install state for Windows SharePoint Service Support to Not Available (Right click on it and choose “not available”) Continue through the wizard.
5.   Reboot

Go to Add/Remove programs --> Select Office 2003 -->Select Change and then Repair-->Continue through the wizard.


I hope the above steps helps you to resolve your problem and you are able to use the data view properly. If you face any issues after applying the above steps then please let me know!! Thanks!!