topic Re: On-demand report generation to network folder in Qlik NPrinting

On-demand report generation to network folder

colinhancox_wp — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 07:23:03 GMT

I've been asked to come up with a solution to the following request. The users want to be able to click on a button in a QlikView report and generate a report using NPrinting, that is saved to a network location rather than downloading locally. They need to do this at random times and the report needs to use the selections they have made. Essentially on-demand reporting, but to a network location. I have considered having a button that exports their selections as a text file and then somehow picking that up and called the NPrinting API, passing the selections as a filter.

Has anyone attempted anything like this or have any suggestions?

If it is not possible in QlikView, Qlik Sense would also be an option, although most of the users have QlikView licences only.

Thanks.

Re: On-demand report generation to network folder

Ruggero_Piccoli — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 08:14:31 GMT

Hi,

On-Demand for both QlikView and Qlik Sense download the generated report using the local brower. The user can manually select a different download folder or move the file after but there is not an option to set a default download folder also if you use the On-Demand APIs.

You could try to use APIs to trigger a publish task with a destination folder configured but Task Execution APIs do not allow you to pass a filter.

Best Regards,

Ruggero

Re: On-demand report generation to network folder

F_B — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 08:15:14 GMT

Hi @colinhancox_wp,

Qlik Application Automation allows you to store reports in Microsoft SharePoint, is this a solution that may apply to your request?

Re: On-demand report generation to network folder

JonnyPoole — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 16:58:10 GMT

This feature existed in NPrinting 16: on-demand task. It does not exist in NPrinting 17 unless you are able to code/integrate a solution that uses the on-demand API or carefully use the task API. However, it IS possible again in Qlik Cloud using App Automation to generate PDF/PPTX reports on demand through a button in the Qlik Sense sheet that passes selections to an automation to generate a report in web based storage folder.

Re: On-demand report generation to network folder

colinhancox_wp — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 22:28:35 GMT

Thanks Ruggero. Unfortunately, for auditing and data integrity reasons, they want the reports to be saved directly to a network folder, saving locally and moving the files is not an option. But they also want to be able to make selections and filter. I'm familiar with the on-demand extension, I've used that a lot, but not so much with the APIs, I didn't know you couldn't pass filters on the fly. I've downloaded some of @Lech_Miszkiewicz's impressive API examples and been looking through those to see if there's anything I can use, maybe by triggering a reload in another app that picks up the exported filters.

Re: On-demand report generation to network folder

colinhancox_wp — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 22:29:57 GMT

No, this is a legacy QlikView setup on a server that doesn't have internet access, Qlik Application Automation is not an option.

Re: On-demand report generation to network folder

colinhancox_wp — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 22:32:26 GMT

This is unfortunately not Qlik Cloud, it's not even Qlik Sense. I feel like I've gone back in time 10 years 🙂

Re: On-demand report generation to network folder

Lech_Miszkiewicz — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 23:36:56 GMT

Hi @colinhancox_wp

If I am honest I dont see this working in the fully "safe" scenario. Assuming scenario easier to build would be Qlik Sense and assuming that you could build your own Qlik Sense extension:

with use of Qlik Sense apis and NPrinting APIs
to obtain field selections (QS API) and update exisiting NPrinitng filter (NPrinting API--> authenticate + update filter) attached to task or report
trigger task (NPrinting API)

This process presents following problem - it does not guarantee that you are the only person updating filter and executing task at the time when you press button to execute it. So it is risky as you may have 2 users working on it and the update of the filter may be replaced by update from another user. I know this can take just seconds but still it is possible and report generated could pickup selection from other user. Otherwise that is the process I would follow.

Also you would need to ensure that users running those reports have access to update filters and trigger tasks in NPrinting.

Unfortunatelly for you all the API work i did was purely for execution from Qlik reload script and will have no use in this case I am afraid. It also did not cover filters as I started working on it and then realised that despite it being possible to write and achieve I would not use it and instead I would use import task. Here you would have to build your own solution completely from scratch. Is it worth the effort? - only you can tell!

If this needs to run of QlikView you would have to tap into QlikView API which I have not touched so I cannot comment on it.

Re: On-demand report generation to network folder

colinhancox_wp — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 00:17:56 GMT

Thanks for the feedback @Lech_Miszkiewicz , very useful. Multiple users is definitely something that I have identified as a risk with exporting the filters. I did have a look at Import tasks yesterday, that is also something that could be useful, but again it needs some means of triggering it that would need to be built. And it feels like a bit of a hack, although I think whatever I end up doing will be a bit of a hack.

If I come up up with good solution I'll update this thread.

Re: On-demand report generation to network folder

Lech_Miszkiewicz — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 01:45:06 GMT

Hi @colinhancox_wp

Yes - whatever you do will be some sort of hack.

So, thinking about hacks - how about using some sort of browser extension to solve this issue. I dont know what the default browser is in your organization but lets assume it is Chrome. You could use tools like https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/downloads-router/fgkboeogiiklpklnjgdiaghaiehcknjo/ which will allow you to set different folder based on source domain and type of the file being downloaded and more.

From all the hacks - this could be the easiest one to test I think. You would retain default OnDemand behaviour of Qlik NPrinting and produced downloaded reports would be saved directly to shared drive.

Would that be an option?

Re: On-demand report generation to network folder

colinhancox_wp — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 04:04:02 GMT

@Lech_Miszkiewicz , in a less restricted environment that would be a good solution, thanks. Our default browser is Edge though, and Chrome is blocked from installing extensions. I'll mention it as an option and see if it gets IT approval, but I suspect the requirement will be to ensure the report is sent to the network location from the NPrinting or QlikView server without the possibility of it ending up on the user's desktop, which it might do if that extension was not installed.

Re: On-demand report generation to network folder

Lech_Miszkiewicz — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 05:10:07 GMT

Hi @colinhancox_wp - well.. one line in your description changes quite a lot: "...but I suspect the requirement will be to ensure the report is sent to the network location from the NPrinting or QlikView server..." - if that is true, then ondemand is out of scope as it will always go through user computers and we really can look at the hack with updating filters and triggering task using APIs which is not really designed for...

Re: On-demand report generation to network folder

colinhancox_wp — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 06:03:06 GMT

Hi @Lech_Miszkiewicz . Yes, I didn't think the on-demand extension would be the solution. I was hoping there would be a way of sending the user's selections to NPrinting using the API and triggering a task which would output the report to the desired destination, applying those filters, but it doesn't sound like that is possible.

I have made the point that this is not out-the-box QlikView or NPrinting functionality, but business wants what business wants.

Re: On-demand report generation to network folder

Ruggero_Piccoli — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 09:09:25 GMT

Hi,

The On-Demand extension uses the related Qlik NPrinting APIs and in a On-Demand request you can send a filter https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/May2023/APIs/NP+API/index.html?page=105 but you can set an output folder.

Instead you could evaluate (I have not tested it, it is an idea) to create a publish task with the report you want to save and the destination folder (that can't be changed via APIs) and a filter. Using the API https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/May2023/APIs/NP+API/index.html?page=28 you can change the filter (you have to read the selections in QlikView) and with https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/May2023/APIs/NP+API/index.html?page=57 you can run the task.

Best Regards,

Ruggero

Re: On-demand report generation to network folder

Lech_Miszkiewicz — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 10:16:31 GMT

That is exactly what I suggested @Ruggero_Piccoli but the problem is that the filter can only have a single state at the time so if 2 different users try to run it at similar or very close time it may get mismatched.

Re: On-demand report generation to network folder

JonnyPoole — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 13:29:29 GMT

I've struggled with this use case previously as well. To avoid the race conditions that have been articulated previously in this thread, I believe (or believed) the solution would require some kind of writeback to generate a 'request' table that would become the driver for a user import file that contained all the group, user, filter assignments so that all the on-demand requests could be run in batch through a publish task execution periodically during the day. I recall toying with writing back the information to a SQL database or, writing it directly into NPrinting using the filter,user, or group API. Just a wire framed idea.

Re: On-demand report generation to network folder

colinhancox_wp — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 02:43:11 GMT

With Qlik Sense I could potentially use Forms instead of writing to a database. Have the user select their filters in a form, which would save to QVD (or xml) and then populate the Import Task template using that QVD. The reload button on the form would trigger the reload of a second app which would simply call the NPrinting API from the load script. I might try to mock that up to see if it's possible in Qlik Sense before considering whether it's possible in QlikView.

Re: On-demand report generation to network folder

colinhancox_wp — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 04:30:26 GMT

Hi @Ruggero_Piccoli

I've had some success with the APIs, I've managed to create a script that can create a filter, update a filter and run a publish task, so it could, in theory, take selections from a QlikView app, update a generic filter and run the task with the selections. I just need a way to get the selections out of QlikView, which might have to be via a macro.

However, I have also discovered that NPrinting on-demand reports are saved on the NPrinting server in "C:\ProgramData\NPrinting\ondemand\responses". This could be an easy solution to my problem, but the files are stored without a file extension and with some kind of hash code as the name, e.g., a50f234367e140e36066be8a13895ee7. They are in the correct format though, if I add .xlsx and open the file, it is the report that has been generated on demand.

So my next question is, is there a way to match up the file name in that folder with the filename as it was generated by the on-demand extension? Is that information stored in the NPrinting repository maybe and is it possible to query it?

Thanks

Re: On-demand report generation to network folder

JonnyPoole — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 13:15:33 GMT

Yes it's all in there. Here is a view from pgadmin

Re: On-demand report generation to network folder

colinhancox_wp — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 01:10:17 GMT

Thanks, that looks like most of what am I looking for. In your example though, title is 'Excel'. Is the name of the report that was generated stored in that table? For example, my report is downloaded by the on-demand extension as 'NSFR.ARF.210.6A-2024-02-20-20240312144426.xlsx'. If I can match that name to the files then I'd be able to rename the files correctly.