Brian - Thanks for the response. I tried to change the "\" with the "/" slash and still the same result. Tried the whole link 'https://dev.net.com/ImageFolder/201410/folder/full/123EFG.JPG' as the formula without building my own path as above in the formula. still the same result. Infact, even if I did have the forward slashes in the link , the excel showed up as below replaced all of my forward slashes with backward slashes while hovering over the link
file:///C:\https:\dev.net.com\ImageFolder\201410\folder\full\123EFG.JPG
Interesting to note that I specified http instead of https
'http://dev.net.com/ImageFolder/201410/folder/full/123EFG.JPG'
Exported as an .xlsx file and I did get a warning message.
When I did click on the Yes and opened the excel, I was able to open up the hyperlink normally. Not sure if this a known behavior of excel.
I have changed my report to point to the old formula , but with the http and I still get the message while opening up excel, when I do click yes, I can get to the link without issues.
For now, we will live with this workaround, but if you have a better solution, please let us know.