Understanding the Transition Report

Overview of the Transition Report

When you transition your classic files you'll receive an email with a link to a Transition Report so you can review any issues. This is typically related to formatting or features that don't exist yet in the next generation file types.

On the transition report, you’ll see a list of report codes and a link to where you can see the item in your document. As a best practice, access the Transition Report from the email, then create a spreadsheet to review items. You can also export it to .csv file if you need to share it with others outside of Workiva.

Transition Report

Review the Transition Report

Using a spreadsheet to review the transition report provides options to share the report with others, use sort and filter options, and keep track of resolved items.

To review your transition report using a spreadsheet:

1: Open the transition report from the email you received.
2: Click Create Spreadsheet.
3: With the report open, you can sort or filter to prioritize report items. By default, it pre-sorts to Warning to help you find the most impactful items. These are the items you'll typically want to review first.
4: Review and update items on the report. Open the original document and then compare it to the new document to find and resolve any issues. You can look up the transition report codes below for recommended actions.

You can also add data validations to a column to help keep track of items and the action taken.

Add Data Validation Report

Transition Report Codes

There are four types of report codes on the transition report:

Warning indicates review is required for an item
Information indicates an action was automatically performed during the transition and review is recommended
Updated indicates an action was automatically performed during the transition and you typically do not need to review these
Error indicates an unexpected error occurred; please contact support

Click on the sections below to view details for transition report codes, what they mean, and what action to take.

Warning

Code	Type	Message	Recommended Action
108	Warning	Data Validation Removed	Some types of data validations are not supported: date, decimal (float), whole number (integer), and text. If the validation is a simple range of specific values (numbers, dates, words), you can enter values into a series of Spreadsheet cells and use the Range option.
109	Warning	Table titles are not transitioned yet, the contents of the title has been placed before table. Please insert as a title row.	Recreate table titles from the contents of the table that appears as a paragraph above the table.
121	Warning	Cell value could not be scaled	Check that the cell value is displayed correctly at the correct scale.
128	Warning	Cell will show the percent sign	Review the cell for formatting and symbol aligment.
129	Warning	Cell does not support a custom decimal separator	If this feature is needed, consider waiting to transition until it is supported.
146	Warning	Default currency symbol settings not supported	Document defaults for this setting are not supported yet. If this feature is needed, consider waiting to transition until it is supported.
147	Warning	Default currency symbol placement settings not supported	Document defaults for this setting are not supported yet. If this feature is needed, consider waiting to transition until it is supported.
164	Warning	Section hyperlinks are not yet supported	If this feature is needed, consider waiting to transition until it is supported.
165	Warning	Page number prefix is not yet supported	Enter any text needed in front on the page number autoText, for example "E-" for exhibit appendix). You also need to enter this prefix into any corresponding table of contents table cells.
172	Warning	Review the document to ensure XBRL facts only appear in desired sections and that other sections have XBRL disabled	Review sections for appropriate XBRL settings
174	Warning	Maximum number of tab stops reached	Review your document for tab stops and formatting. Typically this happens when a document is imported from .docx and there are a large number of tab stops inherited. Typically, you can ignore this unless you see formatting issues.
179	Warning	Table has been moved to a new paragraph	When a table is in the same paragraph as other content (for example text, another table, a chart), the table is moved to its own paragraph. If you want to have the table on the same line as the other content, select the two paragraphs and format them as Two Column.
180	Warning	Custom list progressions are not supported	Review the list for formatting.
181	Warning	Deep nesting for this list type is not supported	Review the list for formatting.
207	Warning	Global Precision-Based Overrides are not supported	Global Precision-Based Overrides (GPBO) are used to override the destination link value for source links according to the precision the number is displayed at. Review each destination link of source cell to determine if an alternate number replacement method is needed. Learn More
209	Warning	Fixed width tables for EDGAR are not supported yet	Tables will be exported to EDGAR using percentage-based variable width instead.
300	Warning	Possible Broken Link	Review to check for any broken links
301	Warning	Possible Data Mismatch	There may be an unintended change to a table cell. Review both the classic document and the next generation document for expected content.
303	Warning	An XBRL tag has been removed	A potentially disconnected XBRL tag was found and removed during transition. Review XBRL tagging at this location. This happens when the text selection of the tag is invalid, meaning the content range does not exist in the document any longer. Usually this is a tag that was orphaned and was not updated prior to transition.
304	Warning	An XBRL tag has been adjusted	Review XBRL tagging at this location.
305	Warning	Page cannot change size or margins mid-page	When the page size or margins change between sections of a next generation document, there will always be a page break. Find the page with the break, and then change the margins back to the default using section properties.
306	Warning	Possible Data Mismatch: Number precision changed	This is a special case of “Data Mismatch”. The number is the same within a given tolerance. Verify the precision of the number in the new table cell, likely the precision change is insignificant.
309	Warning	Even/odd page headers/footers are not supported	Alternating Headers / Footers are not yet supported. If this feature is needed, consider waiting to transition until it is supported.
310	Warning	First page of section headers/footers are not supported	First Page Headers / Footers are not yet supported. If this feature is needed, consider waiting to transition until it is supported.
314	Warning	Header/footer margins that differ from the section are not supported	The margins of the header or footer cannot be different from the margins of the pages in the section
316	Warning	Possible Data Mismatch: Possible loss of special characters	Review cells to ensure special characters display correctly, such as symbols or line breaks.
319	Warning	Possible Data Mismatch: Empty cell now contains content	Review cells to ensure the cell contains the expected value. This often occurs when a cell is set to equal another cell. In Classic the result was empty. In Next Gen, to better match other spreadsheet applications, when a cell equals a cell that is empty the result is "0" (zero). To preserve the original behavior that kept a cell blank, the formula need to be changed to: =IF(ISBLANK(A1),"",A1)
320	Warning	Custom margins in header/footer can only contain a single unique value per section	Custom margins in header/footer can only contain a single unique value per section. This happens when a section uses different headers or footers odd/even or first page. If the odd and even headers have different margins, you'll see this message. Typically, a single left and right margin is OK, because the even header normally uses left alignment and the odd header will using right alignment. As such, you can ignore this message unless the margin values transitioned are not correct.
322	Warning	One or more attachments over this paragraph has been removed	Review the file for attachment references. The attachment was transitioned but is now disconnected.
323	Warning	A cell attachment has been removed from table	Review the file for attachment references. The attachment was transitioned but is now disconnected.
324	Warning	A cell comment has been removed from table'	Review the file for disconnected comments.
325	Warning	A text comment has been removed from paragraph'	Review the file for disconnected comments.
326	Warning	Existing broken link removed	When the file was transitioned, there were already broken links. Review links in your classic files. This typically happens when a document containing a source link has been trashed, and the document containing the destination is transitioned.
502	Warning	Cell Entered In converted to Ones	Verify cells where the Entered In units should have been Ones has been updated correctly.
504	Warning	Cell contents truncated after 32,767 characters	There were too many characters in the workbook cell. Any characters after the first 32,767 are removed.
706	Warning	Star chart marker shapes are not yet supported	If this feature is needed, consider waiting to transition until it is supported.
708	Warning	Font settings on individual legend entries is not yet supported	If this feature is needed, consider waiting to transition until it is supported.
709	Warning	Waterfall charts require updating after transition	In next gen, waterfall charts now store the total columns as a separate series and corresponding row in the chart table. If this 2nd series is turned into a waterfall the chart will position the columns on either side of the tick marks because it is expecting to have 2 sets of waterfall data now. To fix this, select the last column and change it back to a column series.
711	Warning	The chart series is missing a data range; review chart formatting	Check the format and layout of the charts after you transition
801	Warning	Changing slide dimensions from the document default is not yet supported	If this feature is needed, consider waiting to transition until it is supported.
805	Warning	Text anchored to lines is not yet supported	If this feature is needed, consider waiting to transition until it is supported.
807	Warning	Max slide dimensions reached	Review slide dimensions and check to make sure items are arranged correctly. Current next gen slide limits are 200 in. x 200 in.

Information

Code	Type	Message	Recommended Action
150	Information	Smart quotes are not supported	Document defaults for smart quotes are not supported yet. If this feature is needed, consider waiting to transition until it is supported.
158	Information	Multiple conditional formatting rules on a cell are not supported	Multiple conditional formatting rules were not supported in classic. As such, any unneeded rules were removed in the transition to next gen.
183	Information	Link containing formatted text was not replaced with cross-sheet spreadsheet formula	This happens when you transition cross-sheet workbook links to cross-sheet spreadsheet formulas and there are links that have complex or formatted content that won't be preserved when using a formula. As such, the link is skipped and not turned into a formula.
206	Information	Formulas do not support As Displayed Precision	Formulas in Spreadsheets do not yet support the As Displayed Precision calculation mode. All formulas in transitioned Spreadsheet will be calculated with Full Precision. This could cause certain calculations to no longer visually match the result using the contributors in their displayed precision. Selective use of the ROUND function, or other means to adjust results will be necessary if a workaround is required.
307	Information	Possible Data Mismatch: Empty cell now shows 0 (zero)	Spreadsheets evaluate formulas to 0 (zero) if they reference an empty cell to match Excel behavior. This can result in some cells that used to be blank in a Classic Workbook to now show a 0. To continue having the formula result show as a blank cell, you can add &"" (Ampersand Quote Quote) to force the result to be a string and the cell will once again show empty instead of a zero.
311	Information	Paragraph level formats have been removed from cell	In some cases paragraph formats like indentation are removed. Most of those cases don't make an impact, for example, center aligned accounting cells. Verify the formatting on this cell.
313	Information	Possible Data Mismatch: Case sensitivity changed	This indicates cell contents are different, but only in the case of the letters. An example might be a cell that contained the value true and now shows TRUE.
315	Information	Possible Data Mismatch: True/False replaces 1/0	Cells that previously showed the numbers 1 and 0 have been updated to use TRUE and FALSE respectively.
707	Information	Area filled charts use fill color for legend entry	A change was made to the chart legend. Review the changes.

Updated

Code	Type	Message	Recommended Action
105	Updated	Alternating Column Colors Removed	Cell colors were kept as explicit background colors
107	Updated	Precision Formula Replaced with ROUND	Update was made. Verify value is correct.
160	Updated	Newline character in prefix or suffix is not supported and was removed	Newlines in prefix and suffix are not supported yet.
168	Updated	Additional paragraph was added before or after table	Transitioning Classic Document tables may create additional paragraphs if the Classic document had content in the same paragraph of the table. Sometimes these paragraph may appear empty and only contain spaces, these paragraphs can be deleted if not desired.
182	Updated	Table has been moved to a new paragraph	Review table placement and formatting.
308	Updated	Non-sequential sections that share the same header is not supported	Subsequent sections that use an earlier header will no longer automatically update when the first header is changed.
312	Updated	Broken section page link removed
317	Updated	A non-breaking space was removed from a date	No changes needed. This is due to an update of how space characters are handled.
318	Updated	Images smaller than 20 X 20 pixels are resized while preserving aspect ratio	Review the image to ensure it looks as expected.
327	Updated	Broken link due to exclusion	This happens when a source document isn't included in the transition. The links that come from that classic file are removed and replaced with last value. For links in cells, you can go to table destinations. For text destination links, you can go to section where link removal occured.
328	Updated	Section will use margins from previous section to avoid unwanted page break	To prevent a page break, section margins were updated. Review margins for consistent formatting.
329	Updated	Link source removed due to no destinations	This happens when a file is excluded from the transition and a source link is no longer has any destinations. This only occurs for source links in a table cell and the cell content is kept.
500	Updated	Section Renamed	Two sections cannot have the same name in next generation documents, even if in a subsection. The section name was updated.
501	Updated	DateTime cell formatting changed to Number	This occurs for cells that are formatted as Dates, but instead of a complete date only specify the year (e.g. “2018”). Spreadsheets can only format full dates with year, month, and day as dates. If you get this warning, check to see if the formatting at this location is as expected.
503	Updated	DateTime cell formatting changed to Text	This occurs for cells that are formatted as Dates, but had arbitrary text that wasn’t a full date (for example “As of December”). Spreadsheets can only format full dates with year, month and, day as Dates. Check to see if the formatting at this location is as expected.
802	Updated	Multiple presentation slide groups are not yet supported	If this feature is needed, consider waiting to transition until it is supported.

Common Questions

Here are answers to common questions related to items you may see on the transition report and what you may see after you transition.

Why are there so many items for DateTime cell formatting changed?

This happens when there is date information but it isn’t formatted as a Date cell, for example “2018” or “Year Ended 31 December 2018". In situations where it’s just a year, like 2018, the cell format is updated to Number.

When a date includes text in addition to a date, it’s changed to Text. This is because spreadsheets only formats full dates with year, month, and day as Date type cells.

Why do some of my cells not show their prefix / suffix text anymore?

Why do some of my formulas calculate differently?

There are a few changes in how text values behave in comparison formulas in the next generation of Workiva. These changes have been put in place to align some functionality more closely with other spreadsheet products.

Empty Cells and Formulas

Classic: If you had a formula such as "=A1" and A1 was blank, the formula result was empty.
Next Gen: To better match other spreadsheet applications, if a cell is blank the result of "=A1" is "0" (zero).

To, preserve the original behavior that kept the blanks, the formula needs to be changed to: =IF(ISBLANK(A1),"",A1)

Comparing Text Values

Classic: non-numeric text values compare as if they are zero.
Next Gen: non-numeric text values compare as if they are infinity.

For example, take the expression of =”no” > 0. Classic is FALSE because "no" is treated like zero, but in next generation this evaluates to TRUE because “no” is treated like infinity.

Here are some example formulas and what the results would be in classic compared to next gen.

Formula	Classic	Next Gen
=IF("No"	FALSE	FALSE
=IF("No">0,TRUE,FALSE)	FALSE	TRUE
=IF("no"=0,TRUE,FALSE)	TRUE	FALSE

Why do some of my dates show as a 5-digit number now?

Classic: You may not have needed to format a linked value specifically as a Date to show as a date. For example, the link format may have been Text or even Number and still showed the date if the cell contents was actually a full date, for example September 30, 2018.

Next Gen: The same date is stored as a Serial Date format and requires Date formatting to display correctly. Transitioning can’t always detect this and you may need to this fix by updating the formatting of the destination link to a Date format.

Why do I have more or fewer pages in my document now

There are a couple of reasons why your document’s pagination will be different after transitioning to Next Gen.

Widow Orphan and Keep With Next

In some cases, the behavior of pagination controls like Widow/Orphan and Keep With Next will work slightly differently in Next Gen.

Classic: Keep with Next setting would pull the entire paragraph down with it if the last line was not on the first page as the next paragraph's first line.
Next Gen: We updated the behavior to only bring the last line down since Keep With Next should be keeping the last line of the paragraph with the first line of the next.

Paragraphs and Tables

In next gen, there needs to be one paragraph before and after each table in a document. Additionally, tables need to be the only item on a line. As such, any content that may have been on the same line as a table is now be split out to a different paragraph.

Needing to have paragraphs above and below a table doesn't normally change the number of pages, except in the case where the table is either the first or last item in the section. In these cases the transition inserts a blank paragraph and you'll see report code #168 in your transition report.

Why does some paragraph spacing looking different now?

Paragraphs that use Line Spacing that is greater than 1, for example 1.5 or double-spaced, will have a subtle difference in the white space appearing above and below them. In next generation, the text of these lines aligns against the top of the line area, whereas Classic aligns text along the bottom. This change was done to make the behavior more similar to other word processing applications.

This can create subtle paragraph spacing differences when you transition documents. To account for this, paragraphs need to be changed to use Paragraph Space Before and possibly change the Line Spacing or Paragraph Space After. The transition tool does not attempt to make this change automatically.

The change necessary would look approximately like this for a single line paragraph with:

LineSpacing=1.5
ParagraphSpaceAfter=3pts
Font Size=14

To achieve similar white space between paragraphs, the paragraph in question should be changed:

LineSpacing=1.0
ParagraphSpaceBefore=.5*FontSize (or around 7)

Why is there unexpected content at the top or bottom of certain pages?

The way that header and footer content are shown on the page has changed and could have an impact if the contents of the Header or Footer exceed the space allowed for them. In Classic this extra content may have been clipped or hidden, but in Next Gen, all of the content will display. Content that exceeds the header/footer margin now shows on the page itself. Whereas in Classic, it would simply not show.

Example: You now see unexpected content at the top or bottom of every page that you cannot account for. To resolve, double-click into the appropriate Header or Footer and verify that there is no content that is unexpected or should be removed.

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