Analyst Software Batch Editor Could not open the batch data DAB Sever Error

For research use only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures
Issue Description 

The ODBC TEXT driver has a limit on the number of characters per row (a “record”) being imported. We cannot find official documentation on this limit, but based on investigation the limit is around 2013 to 2018 characters when importing from TEXT file.

 Resolution

We can suggest the following: when importing a text file, keep each row to at most 2000 characters, which includes any space and tab characters. To do this, open the text file in Notepad (or any plain text editor) and replace long file-names, Sample-names and any other descriptors with shorter ones.

The ODBC Excel driver has a higher limit on the record size (again, don’t know the exact number), so converting the text file to .xls could be a work-around.  However, if the file has too many columns, even Excel would also fail when trying to import it.

To convert the text file into an Excel (.xls) file first, then do the Batch import in Analyst. To convert the text file:

1. Open the text file in Excel.
2. When the Text Import Wizard opens, click Next for all steps, keeping all the default settings for a tab-delimited file.
3. Change the top left A1 cell from “% header=SampleName” to “SampleName”. Rename the sheet name to “DABImport”. *Note the sheet name is not the name of the document it is the tab within the document*
4. Save the file as type “Microsoft Office Excel Workbook (*.xls)” if using Excel 2003, or “Excel 97-2003 Workbook (*.xls)” if using Excel 2007

Any Version of Excel above 2003, needs to be saved as Excel 97-2003 and not just XLS

When importing the file into Analyst select the “Microsoft excel Driver” (XLS), ensuring that the file is closed in Excel.