We have a SharePoint 2010 document library that has a required field that is from an external data source. When we open existing Excel documents, a ribbon appears stating "To save to the server, correct the invalid or missing required fields.". If you go File>Info>Document Information Panel you will see this external data source field with a Red Asterisk and it says "Show Details". If you click "Show Details" it will show you the "Document Properties - Server" toolbar and you will see this field populated. It is however read only, and I believe that it is because its an external data source. It will not let us save any excel documents as it seems that Excel feels this field is empty or incorrect.
The same happens with Microsoft Word documents, in that if you open an existing document and go to the document control panel you will see the external data field with a Red Asterisk and it says "Show Details". If you click "Show Details" it will show you the "Document Properties - Server" toolbar and you will see this field populated but read only; the difference is with the Word documents we can save and close the documents. If we upload a new excel document, it behaves just like word documents, so it seems its only applicable to existing excel documents.
Over the past 2 weeks we have upgraded from SharePoint RTM to SharePoint SP2. This is has never been reported prior to the upgrades so I am assuming, but cannot confirm, if it was caused by the upgrades.
I see there are workarounds online for Word, but nothing for excel.
Any help for further troubleshooting would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Ken
Kenneth Clebak