The Read Excel task can read data from Microsoft Excel 2003 and 2007 documents and load this data into RowSet variables. Those RowSet variables can then be used in other tasks for importing the Excel data into databases or for translating this data into other file types such as

CSV

, fixed-width, or

XML

.

Complex Excel documents can be read by

Managed File Transfer

, including documents with formatted data, formulas and multiple sheets.

Column elements can be placed under the Read Excel Task to specify options for each column in the Excel document. For instance, you can specify a name for a column, its data type and formatting (using the pattern attribute).

Columns containing date or time values will be formatted based on ISO standards. For instance, when a cell contains a date and time formatted as ‘12/25/2005 11:58 PM’, the Read Excel Task will parse it into a ISO formatted date and time string as ‘2005-12-25 11:58:00.000’.

By default, all sheets in the Excel document will be read unless you specify a sheet name in the Sheet Name(s) attribute. If multiple sheets are being read, then the data on all sheets must start on the same row number and each sheet must contain the same number of columns or the

Project

will fail.