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https://taggs.hhs.gov offers a great comprehensive database of all grants awarded by the HHS (Department of Health & Human Services, US).

Their "Award Search" engine is effective and convenient. However, I cannot seem to xls or csv (or anything else really) from the Award Search.

Say, for example, that I am looking at the keywork "Hepatits": http://tinyurl.com/yylzooc5, which returns 4788 items.

The "Quick Help" says

"You may export data by choosing one of the four Export Group options: Microsoft Excel, Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), Microsoft Word Rich Test Format (RTF), or Comma Separated Value (CSV) format. You will find four export options in the upper right corner of the data window. Exports are limited to 10,000 rows. The last export option allows the ability to generate a sharable URL that can be emailed or messaged for sharing the data results."

Since my search contains only 4788 items, I guess I should be fine.

I can see the export buttons in the top-right corner, which looks like this:

enter image description here

When I click on one of the buttons, for example the xls one, a little bar appears right beside it, but nothing else happens, even if I wait for a while.

enter image description here

I've tried with three different browsers, to no avail. The only button that does work for me is the last one that creates the shorturl link to my search (which I used above). None of the other "export" buttons works.

I have also tried smaller searches (e.g., http://tinyurl.com/y6e8xbs6) thinking that maybe each item would take up more than one row (??), but I get exactly the same behavior I described above (small line appears beside export button, but nothing else happens, even if I wait for a while).

My questions are:

  • Am I the only one who's unable to export data from https://taggs.hhs.gov, or do other people face the same issue (maybe export is geo-restricted??)?
  • If someone manages to export data from there, can they explain what I am doing wrong?
  • If no one manages to extract data using the built-in export tools, can someone suggest a hack?
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    Interesting. I can confirm same problem (Switzerland, Firefox, OS X). Will be curious to see if it works from the US.
    – philshem
    Jun 6, 2019 at 9:34
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    i can export xls from richmond, va
    – albert
    Jun 6, 2019 at 19:35
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    I was able to download a spreadsheet (.xlsx format) from the front page of the Awards Search. I clicked the button, a line appeared next to the button (as you described), the bottom of the browser window said "waiting for taggs.hhs.gov" and about 5 seconds later I had a spreadsheet called "TAGGS Export pdulqgo4.zjn.xlsx". The actual download took less than a second. Located in the US, using Chrome on Windows 10.
    – csk
    Jun 6, 2019 at 19:35
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    my bad. i'm in ff in osx. here's a drive directory with that data: drive.google.com/open?id=1NrOxMzJbDOG9CH2eL1k_uarAkeuA0b6q
    – albert
    Jun 6, 2019 at 19:37
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    Dumb question: do your browsers automatically save certain types of documents to disk? If so, you may have downloaded them without knowing (your download manager might help confirm this)
    – user3856
    Jun 6, 2019 at 19:38

1 Answer 1

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Thanks to everyone who gave it a try, both those who confirmed the problem, and those who have been more successful.

I have tried it this morning from home (as opposed to work, again in Belgium), and everything worked just fine.

I wonder what caused the problem. I sent them an email yesterday explaining the issue. Maybe they put together a quick fix. I will still try from work later today to see if it has something to do with the network one is on. More updates soon.

Update: The export function now works from my work as well. I guess it was either a temporary glitch, or they fixed something in the meantime.

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