User's Guide on Nprinting?

[Vitali]

Hello there,

I am looking for materials for complete newcomers (like myself) to NPrinting. I've downloaded the official documentation but I'm wondering if there is something else beside that that I could use, it's a 400+ page document that isn't very welcoming at first sight. Clearly, once I get my hands on the tool I'll have more questions but for now I'm looking for something a bit more introductory (or shorter). 

Any suggestions - articles, videos or blogs - are most welcome.

Thank you

Vitali

[lironbaram · Accepted solution]

hi 

you can see some example in the documentation in this area 

https://community.qlik.com/t5/Qlik-NPrinting-Documents/tkb-p/qlik-nprinting-documents

and some videos here

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFxZPr8pHfZS0n3jxx74rpA/search?query=nprinting

[Vitali]

Thanks a lot, @lironbaram 

I've come across some of the videos but what I would also need is some structure - even the playlist appears to be a bit messy  - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkRFvjyuHFvLTb2GVQUT9G4qFPprox3LQ

As far as I understand, the standard routine goes like this (please correct any errors I may have):

1) Getting a license

2) Installing Engine, Designer and Server (recommended to be on a machine different from the one I'm using);

3) Developing QS app

4) Linking the QS app with NPrinting

     4.1. Developing an NPrint App/Layout

5) Setting up recepients, scheduling etc.

[Lech_Miszkiewicz]

Hi Vitali,

https://help.qlik.com is the place to start (which i believe you refered to).  There are tutorials and videos there.

My other observations:

• it will not be welcoming to start with any new tool - what if you would like to learn for example vue js, react or angular - do you think technical documentation is welcoming? obviously no. You need to go through long training and get a lot of practice before you can become developer. The same applies to NPrinting - you need a lot of QlikView/Qlik Sense development experience and you should go through training and tutorials.
• You should not assume that NPrinting is easy. It requires knowledge and practice.
• There are also available courses on https://qcc.qlik.com

regards

Lech

[Vitali]

Hi Lech,

Correct, I've downloaded the documentation from there, https://help.qlik.com is where I started from. 

To your other observations:

• I get that, this is not my first job; As I said in my original post: "Clearly, once I get my hands on the tool I'll have more questions but for now I'm looking for something a bit more introductory (or shorter)"  
• I didn't assume that;
• The course that could potentially help me is $3000, which is not what I'm looking for at the moment;

My experience is that the community can sometimes suggest resources that don't pop-up on the first couple of pages of Google results, thus my question here. I am an advanced Power BI user and some of the best resources I've found are on personal blogs you may never stumble upon initially, that's unless someone directs you to them. So whenever someone asks me where to start, I'm happy to share my favorite blogs and authors with them.

Regards,

Vitali

[Lech_Miszkiewicz]

Hi Vitali,

I see that you have PowerBI background. Do you have any QlikView and Qlik Sense development experience? NPrinting development starts with good Qlik application development. 80-90% of logic, solutions, preparations starts there often with respect to what is required for NPrinting to work efficiently and properly. 

I saw few of your posts on Community regarding basics in Qlik development so i assume you have no experience in QlikView nor Qlik Sense, right? That being said i would focus first on Qlik development as you should have quite good understanding in it before moving to NPrinting. Why? because they work together and they highly depend on each other.

Example why:

If you just assume that you can use any Qlik application with NPrinting you may fall short with unsupported objects used like:

• triggers
• alternate states
• extensions (they sometimes can work but they not supported by Qlik)
• "always one selected value" field property etc... 

there is a lot... Do you know all of them already in QlikView or Qlik Sense and know how they work? If you do that is a great start because you would tick of the list one of the basic requirements from Qlik NPrinting help page:

https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/April2019/Content/NPrinting/GettingStarted/HowCreateConnection...

Then there is more:

• calculated dimensions 
• "=" sign in dimensions
• variables
• $ sign expansions
• "=" sign variables
• conditional expressions
• conditional hide/show objects
• duality of data in Qlik see this--> https://community.qlik.com/t5/Qlik-Design-Blog/The-Qlik-engine-A-Forgiving-Engine/ba-p/1473649

You really need solid ground in QlikView/Qlik Sense to move on to NPrinting or you will face never ending issues adn problems.

But if you really insist to learn NPrinting before knowing QlikView or Qlik Sense well i suggest to go in details through first few chapters about NPrinting including:

• https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/April2019/Content/NPrinting/Introduction/Introduction.htm
• https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/April2019/Content/NPrinting/Introduction/Get-started.htm
• https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/April2019/Content/NPrinting/GettingStarted/HowCreateConnection...
• https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/April2019/Content/NPrinting/DeployingQVNprinting/Planning-your...

I know i pointed you to help page, but really it all matters. One missing requirement from the help page will cause issues of reports not working or connections errors or simply unsupported configurations. Take you time reading it and making sure you meet all requirements and once you have your NPrinting Server, Engine and Designer installed properly and connected to QlikView or Qlik Sense server than you have a good ground to start learning. The installation bit and configuration is very important and many people failed this step as they assumed that installation is just "next-->next--> next-->finish 🙂 Please take your time and build your working environment so it is supported. If you do this you will be on much happier path forward!

Video section of official help page contains short tutorials on selection of different topics and some of them should give you high level information about NPrinting.

hope this gives you little bit more clear indication on how it all works.

cheers

Lech

[Vitali]

That is extremely helpful, Lech, thank you so much for the links and the suggestions!

I did start relatively recently with Qlik Sense, but I dare say that I've made some progress, I've spent quite some time on the forums and testing with sample datasets. I'll gladly read through the links you've suggested.

In general, I try to gradually expand the complexity of the reports I'm building with Qlik, simply because of the many possibilities at hand - for example, I'm trying to avoid using additional extensions, as I've noticed that they don't always behave as expected and I've read that they can cause certain problems (Date Picker for example).

I am getting more and more familiar with Set Expressions, dollar expansions, showing/hiding objects, exploring ODAG right now.  I'm getting comfortable with the duality of the data and overall, color expressions, drill-down dimensions, variables and variable input etc. Needless to say, some things work exactly as expected (color expressions) and other (date field interpretation) - not so, so lots of things to read and not necessarily a clear order or a single source.

I'll take your advice very seriously, "never-ending issues and problems" sounds as something I would definitely avoid.

Once again, this is very much appreciated!

Have a great day ahead 🙂

regards,

Vitali