Problem description
When opening an Excel file generated by VT Docs, users may be unable to run macros in the downloaded file. You'll get the following warning in Excel.
This applies when you generate Compliance / Responsibility Matrices and Quality / Concept Excel reports with macros enabled. For clarity, macros are useful if you want to customize the standard output reports.
The Cause
In April 2022, Microsoft started rolling out changes to how applications like Excel treat files that contain Macros.
Previously, users just needed to enable these macros in Excel by clicking a button on the Trust bar. Now, once a user opens an Excel file (containing macros) from the internet a message bar displays a Security Risk warning as above.
The Resolution
Here's what you can do to work around this:
- Generate your Excel file from VT Docs.
- Once the file has finished downloading, do not open the Excel file directly from your web browser
- In Explorer, locate your Excel file in your Downloads folder.
- Select the Excel document and right click to open the "Properties" dialog box.
- Opposite "Security", click the "Unblock" tick box and click "OK".
- Open the document and you should be able to run macros.
An alternate workaround is to copy the document from the downloads area to a trusted location. Then open the Excel file from there. For example, your Desktop or “My Documents” would typically be trusted locations.
If this doesn't resolve your issue, our support team may be able to help further. Let us know at support@visiblethread.com