I hope this forum is the correct place for my question. I'm using SSIS to export a very wide set of data (300 columns) from SQL to a .csv flat file destination. I'm using the .csv option because I know the Excel destination will not allow implicit conversion of unicode/non-unicode data. I don't have the patience (or time on this project) to do a data conversion for each of these 300 columns so that I can send it to Excel. What I am doing is sending it to .csv and then I have an Excel template set up so that it can "consume" the .csv. It works fine with one major exception. Of the 300 columns, I want my users to be able to edit just 3 columns. So, I've attempted to lock all the other cells and "protect the worksheet" in the Excel template. (The idea is that my users open the template and then navigate to the .csv file to import the data.) Because most of the template cells are locked and the sheet is protected, my users cannot refresh their data set (point to a new .csv to consume). They get the error "The cell or chart that you are trying to change is protected and therefore read-only...blah, blah."
I've found articles on the web about how to get around this when it comes to allowing Macros to run, but I can't find anything about avoiding this problem just in the case of refreshing a data set.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Is there a better way to go about this? Perhaps there's a new trick for the unicode/non-unicode thing?