KB19993: How does the Microsoft Excel export comparison work in MicroStrategy Integrity Manager 9.x?

In Strategy Integrity Manager it is possible to compare Microsoft Excel exports of reports and documents. For more information about this feature, refer to the following Strategy Knowledge Base technical note:
 
KB19077 (KB5703-812-0015): New feature in Strategy Integrity Manager: Excel export comparison
 
Strategy Integrity Manager follows a series of steps in order to perform the Microsoft Excel comparison. The following steps describe each part of the process in detail:
 

• When the Microsoft Excel comparison is selected as part of the processing options, Strategy Integrity Manager sends a report/document job execution to the Strategy Intelligence Server and asks the Strategy Intelligence Server to export it as Microsoft Excel.
• Once the export is completed, Strategy Integrity Manager gets the Microsoft Excel file and saves it to the local file system as an .XLS file.
• A request is sent through Microsoft Excel to print the report/document using the Strategy Image Printer, which comes with the Strategy Integrity Manager installation.
  

• The Strategy Image Printer will produce a PCL file as a result of the printing process.
   
  

• Once the PCL file is generated, Strategy Integrity Manager converts the PCL file into a series of images (.PNG files). Once completed it deletes the PCL file.
• After that, the image files are compared in memory. Once this process finishes, the images are dumped into a java serialization file (.SER). At the end the test folder should only contain a .SER file, the .XML baseline file and the Microsoft Excel worksheet as shown in the following image:
  

Note: If the user finds a PCL file in the same location, it is a symptom that something went wrong through the process. Contact Strategy Technical Support in order to troubleshoot the issue further.