Downloading RIS Award Reports

The easiest way to sort and manipulate data from RIS reports is to download the data, then import into a spreadsheet program (e.g., Excel or Access). Here’s how:

  1. In an RIS award report selection screen (e.g. Awards by Fac/Dept) enter your selection criteria, and execute the report.
  2. Once the report has run, print it out if you would like to keep a hard copy, and click on the "Download" button (upper-left side of screen) if you would like to download the data.
  3. Once you’ve clicked on the download button, you will get a dialogue box titled "Transfer to a local file". It will contain a default file name which includes the location of where it will save the download (default is to your Temp folder on your C drive) and a standard report name with the suffix " .txt " (indicating it is a text file). For example, the default name for the award report by Fac/Dept is "C:\TEMP\APAWFAC.TXT".

This dialogue box also includes a field that identifies the data format as "DAT".

Important notes:

  1. If you change the file name, always keep the suffix " .TXT ".
  2. Do not change the data format. It should always be "DAT".
  1. Click on the "Transfer" button on the lower-left side of the dialogue box to continue downloading the data. Once the download is complete, the dialogue box will disappear from your screen, and you will see the number of bytes transferred displayed on the bottom of your screen.

    2. The file has now been copied into your C:\Temp folder.

  2. To open the download in a spreadsheet program, start your spreadsheet program, and once you are in it, select "Open File".

    3. In the "Open" dialogue box, search for, and open, the downloaded file. It will be in your C:\Temp folder, as a text file, so it you are searching for it in Excel, you will need to change the "Files of type" field from "Microsoft Excel Files" to "All Files" or "Text Files" in order to be able to see the downloaded file.

  3. If you are opening the file in Excel, the Text Import Wizard will appear, and will provide three steps for importing the data. Always follow the same procedure as follows, and you will successfully import the data.
  1. Text Import Wizard: Step 1 of 3

    2. Do not change anything on this screen. Just click on the "Next" button (lower right side of dialogue box) to continue to Step 2.

  2. Text Import Wizard: Step 2 of 3

    3. In Step 2, the only field you need to change is the "Text Qualifier". It should read {none}.

    Click on "Next" to continue import.

  3. Text Import Wizard: Step 3 of 3

In step 3, you should format your date fields to read as dates and not general text. It is important to format your dates, especially if you plan on sorting by them later on.

To do this, scroll across your data preview (by clicking on the right-pointing arrow on lower-right side of box) until you encounter a column that contains dates (e.g. Grnt Start). You will notice that the column heading reads "General".

Click on the column heading to highlight the whole column in your preview, and then select the "Date" radio button in the "Column data format" area at the top right side of the box.

To the right of the Date radio button is a field that displays date formatting (e.g., MDY). You must change this so that it displays the format of the dates AS THEY APPEAR in the data preview (not as you want them to appear later on). Your column heading will now display the date format you selected.

Repeat the date formatting step for every date column (unfortunately you can only format one column at a time).

Complete the import by clicking on the "Finish" button. This will take you to an Excel worksheet containing your downloaded data. You can now sort, subtotal, etc. as desired.

At this stage you should save as an Excel file (.xls instead of the existing .txt)

Tip:

Since the download does not contain the selection criteria or date on which the report was run, it’s a good idea as soon as you have imported a downloaded file to insert a row at the top of the spreadsheet and add a title containing the selection criteria and date run. This is especially useful if you are working with several downloads.

E.g., Dept of Biochemistry, April 1, 1999 to March 31, 2000, Downloaded from RIS on April 25, 2000.

If you have any questions on downloading RIS reports, please contact Nadia Saracoglu at 978-7574 (nadia.saracoglu@utoronto.ca) or Phuong Nguyen at 978-7474 (p.nguyen@utoronto.ca).

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