topic Re: How to create Separate NPrinting Development Environment in Qlik NPrinting

How to create Separate NPrinting Development Environment

zeeshanadeel — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 21:41:14 GMT

Recently we upgrade the Qlikview environment and now we're using different directories for Qlikview Development and Qlikview Production environment.

Now our Qlikview development copy is saved at \\FileServer\qv-dev\SourceDocs\5.NPrintingQlik\1.Application\NPrintingQlik.qvw

AND production copy is save at \\FileServer\qv-prod\SourceDocs\5.NPrintingQlik\1.Application\NPrintingQlik.qvw

I want to have a separate NPrinting Development environment so our developer can work in that environment without touching production Qlikview and/or production NPrinting files.

Most of the developers wouldn't have production environment access.

All of the above are already in place and we're happy with it.

Now the challenge is whenever we promote NPrinting *.nsq file in production we have to open it in NPrinting Designer and change the Qlikview documents path to reflect the production environment.

I personally thing that we should not be changing the Qlikview document location whenever we promote the changes in production. Is there anyway that we can achieve this? I could not see any option in NPrinting.

BTW, I was thinking to create Map drives in both environment but so for I'm just thinking about it.

Thanks for the help.

-Zeeshan

Re: How to create Separate NPrinting Development Environment

Daniel_Jenkins — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 08:41:59 GMT

Hi Zeeshan,

You should use Environment Variables in your QlikView NPrinting projects. This way you only need to change the value of the Environment Variables when you deploy to Production. Take a look at this document: How to Use Environment Variables

HTH - Daniel.

Re: How to create Separate NPrinting Development Environment

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 10:45:39 GMT

Our environment might not be typical as our data is static and updated on a monthly basis. In addition to what Daniel says, we typically make a copy of our binary QVW file and move it to the development path and eventually to the production server. So, maybe moving your QVW is easier than changing your path. This is certainly something you could do in your load process on your QMC.

This is assuming that your development server and production server are using the same folder structure.

Re: How to create Separate NPrinting Development Environment

zeeshanadeel — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 14:09:22 GMT

Daniel, thanks for prompt reply.

I just wonder why NPrinting did not use system's environment variables or Qlikview include files feature. In this way we don't need to make any changes in NPrinting while promoting these changes. We just need to define different paths in different environments only once and the whole process would work without any issue.

Re: How to create Separate NPrinting Development Environment

zeeshanadeel — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 14:11:31 GMT

In past we had that kind of environment but now we're using SAN drive (a dedicated file server for all Qlikview files). Now our development, test and production environments paths are different.

Re: How to create Separate NPrinting Development Environment

Daniel_Jenkins — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 22:29:36 GMT

Hi Zeeshan,

Taking your scenario you simply need one environment variable. Example:

evProjectRoot = \\FileServer\qv-dev

Use that everywhere in your project (NSQ). E.g., %evProjectRoot%\SourceDocs\5.NPrintingQlik\1.Application\NPrintingQlik.qvw

Since you already have the required environment in place and are happy with it, when deploying from Dev. to Prod. you need to make just one single change to the value of the environment variable in the NSQ:

evProjectRoot = \\FileServer\qv-prod

In my opinion this is a great feature making the deployment process very simple. You don't have to agree

Best,

Daniel.

Re: How to create Separate NPrinting Development Environment

zeeshanadeel — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 22:26:05 GMT

Thanks Daniel, it looks this is the best we have in NPrinting as of today.