SharePoint Excel Services and Excel Web Access : The workbook that you selected cannot be opened

Excel Services Web Access web-part

This error can happen when a user is using Excel Services to add an Excel Web Access web-part on a SharePoint page.

The root cause may be related to SharePoint’s Excel application service hanging, or a document library which is not part of a trusted location. The document library containing the imbedded Excel needs to be a part of  Trusted Location in SharePoint Central Admin.

Set the document library’s Site  as a trusted location

• In Central Administration go to  the Application Management – > Manage Service Applications ->Excel Services Application.
• Select the Trusted File Locations.
• Select Add Trusted File Location.
• Add your document library’s site collection or sub-site.
• Http://domain/yoursite/    OR  Http://domain/yoursite/document library.
• Check the option Trust Children.
• Data refresh will happen every five minutes, unless you change the settings in Central Administration.

Recycle application pool

You will need first to identify Excel Calculation Service, which is a part of SharePoint Web-Services IIS site:

1. Start IIS and select the SharePoint web services site.
2. Expand the site – you should see nodes with GUID numbers.
3. Right click on each GUID service.
4. Select Explore.
5. You should get the folder and the web service name.

• After identifying the GUID select the service and on the right navigation.
• Select Advanced Settings, you should be able to identify the Application Pool for this service.
• Now that you know which application pool you need to restart go to IIS applications pools and restart the service.

Settings for the Document Library

Make sure that the setting on the document library is set to open document on the client

Open the document library on the client ( user interface )

1. Document library settings.
2. Advanced settings.
3. Open document on the client.