Generate the SAS® Add-In for Microsoft Office log with SAS® Financial Management 5.3 and later


The SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office Message log records information about queries generated via the SAS Financial Management Add-In for Microsoft Excel.

The SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office message log is useful for diagnosing instances of unexpected behavior when using Microsoft Excel applications to retrieve data from SAS applications or SAS servers.

Activate the Log

To activate the log, complete the following steps:

  1. Close all Microsoft Office applications on the client machine
  2. Download SN046178.zip and extract the <SAS.FM.Common.dll.config> from the ZIP file to the following location on the client machine:
    For SAS Financial Management release 5.3:
         <<drive>:\Program Files\SASHome\x86\SASFinancialManagementAdd-In for Microsoft Excel\5.3>
  3. To control the amount of output written to the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office log, open the <SAS.FM.Common.dll.config> file with a standard text editor, such as Notepad, WordPad or TextPad, and modify the <add key="DebugLevel" value="X"/> line so that the "X" value is set to the desired logging level, as follows:
0 ERROR - only ERROR messages will be displayed in the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office log
1 WARN - WARNING and ERROR messages will be written to the log
2 INFO - INFORMATION, WARNING, and ERROR messages will be written to the log
3 DEBUG - all messages will be written to the log

Note: By default, the logging level is set to INFO ("DebugLevel" value="2") when you initially download this file.

Following this installation, a log window is displayed when Microsoft Office applications are started. The SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office message log applies to all Microsoft Office products, not selectively to Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, or Microsoft PowerPoint.

Make Changes to Your <SAS.FM.Common.dll.config> File

To disable the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office message log window and direct the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office message log output to a file, make the following changes to your  <SAS.FM.Common.dll.config> file:

  1. Set the value of the following statement to "false"/: 
    <add key="ShowMessageLog" value=...
  2. Set the value of the following statement to "true"/.
    <add key="LogToExternalFile" value=...>

Your output is directed to a directory similar to the following on the client machine:

<<drive:>\Users\<userid>\AppData\Local\Temp\1\MessageLogFile_xx.txt>

Note that the <messages_> or the <MessageLogFile_> file name is incremented (the 'value' of 'xx' increases) each time new log information is written out to a file.