Symptom
The error below occurs when trying to manually enter a value with special characters directly in a variable in Analysis Office (either in prompts of a query or in a planning sequence):
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Input "XYZ!" for <VARIABLE> has an invalid format
(com.sap.ip.bi.bics.dataaccess.consumer.impl.base.RequestedObjects-InvalidFormat)
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Note: "XYZ!" is just an example of a value with special character.
Environment
SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office
Cause
The input fields of the variables use the so-called input string notation, which allows the selection directly entered via keyboard including intervals and hierarchy nodes. This means that some characters are reserved and need to be escaped.
Resolution
It is necessary to escape the reserved character with "\".
For example: the value "XYZ!" should be entered as "XYZ\!".
The SAP KBA 2845593 explains how to enter the values using input-string notation and contains the reserved characters that should be escaped.
See Also
2845593 How to enter the variable values in Analysis Office using the input-string notation
Keywords
invalid, not allowed, input, planning, not able, special, character , KBA , BI-RA-AO-XLA , Excel Addin , Problem