Trigger Nprinting connection task from QlikView (not Qlik sense)

[Sahal]

Hi,

I posted a question maybe  2 years ago about triggering nprinting task from QlikView QMC directly after a task has finished but I got the answer "This is not implemented, look at the API" 🙄. Why this is not a PRIO task I will never understand....

But, for now we need to understand how the API works, how do we trigger a Nprinting task directly after a QlikView task has finished, can anyone guide us?

 Is there a step-by-step guide of using QlikView (NOT Qlik Sense) for this?

[Frank_S]

The NPrinting API's work for both QlikView and Qlik Sense.

For information about implementing this customization, please have a look at the following.

• https://community.qlik.com/t5/Documents/Distribute-NPrinting-reports-after-reloading-a-Qlik-App/ta-p...

Further, if you wish please add your voice here if you wish to submit a specific feature request.

• Ideas | Qlik Community

Kind regards...

[Lech_Miszkiewicz]

Hi @Sahal ,

I would understand your frustration if the required skills to do such solution would go beyond any basic QlikView or Qlik Sense development skills. In this case to implement task chaining in QMC which uses NPrinting API you just need a Qlik script development skills and understanding of both tools (which should be compulsory to anyone who dares to put hands on NPrinintg admin console and/or QlikView QMC). I am just regular QlikView/Qlik Sense developer and there was nothing stopping me from understanding what is required to implement it. 

I understan that word "API" may be scary to many people, but i guess it is scary only if you dont understand what it meant to do. I encourage you to study NPrinting API and read all links provide by Frank in his post. Those are giving you practically step by step instructions what needs to be done. If this is not enough for you to implement it then I would suggest to get someone who would build such solution for you and then take you through it once it is done so you can see that it is really not that hard.

It should not take more than few hours, depending on how much control you have over your environments (admin rights).

Few years ago I took on challenge of writing NPrinting.qvs script library which i use as a core in all my project which require task chaining. This library you can find here: 

https://nprintingadventures.com/2019/04/08/nprinting-api-qlik-rest-subroutines/

It is (almost) plug & play solution. Depending on your setup you may need to tweak few things in there, but again it is all QlikView or Qlik Sense script - so easy-peasy!

good luck

[Sahal]

Excuse you!?.. Who are you to undermine my knowledge of Qlik's products?. The first part of your comment is simple pathetic!, Am I or other customers / developers not able to ask Simple, Medium or Hard questions without attacking our knowledge of Qlik?.

The word "API" does not scare anyone in this community, however all of us are not here daily answering, helping, asking or even attacking like you are doing right now, and this is not helpful. 

I would suggest that you jump over questions that you feel the need of attaching other peoples knowledge.

Having all of that said, @Frank_S comment is all I needed and was very helpful... There are still a lot of features that are missing in Nprinting one of them is a simple built-in trigger from QlikView/Qlik Sense to Nprinting without using API. 

Thank you once again @Frank_S for your professionalism!

[Lech_Miszkiewicz]

Hi @Sahal 

Apologies if you have taken my comment personally - I did not intend to undermine your Qlik knowledge nor attack you or anyone. I am sorry if you felt that way.

All what I wanted to say was that Qlik scripting knowledge is all what you need to build fully supported solution and you dont need to know other technologies which was my key point of not being scared of API. I am not here to judge yours or anyones skills. I intended to say that there is level of skills required to achieve something what we are proposing as a solution. Solution mention by Frank and myself is available for more than 3 years and was discussed many times on community and other platforms.

Everyone is more than welcome to ask questions - I am not against it. The only thing I encourage people to do is to search community or even google before posting questions, so we could avoid unnecessary duplication of the same topics.

cheers

[Lech_Miszkiewicz]

Just to add to the above - you already received exactly the same link to the step-by-step instructions how to implement API trigger from Qlik script in your original post here:  https://community.qlik.com/t5/Suggest-an-Idea/Trigger-automatically-NPrinting-task-after-the-metadat... . 

[Sahal]

It´s almost 1 year ago (and 2020) I posted my "original" post on the same issue, however I had hoped that this would have been implemented as an Built-in function and I hade only missed it,  rather then using the API hence my new post.

Sorry to say this is still not the case.... 

I might ask the same question again in 1 year we see but for now I'm going to look at the API.

[Ruggero_Piccoli]

Hi,

I know that this tutorial is focused on Qlik Sense https://community.qlik.com/t5/Qlik-NPrinting-Discussions/How-to-use-Qlik-NPrinting-APIs-inside-a-Qli... but the Qlik REST connector is the same for both products and the differences are minimal and documented in the tutorial.

I just wrote this article to better explain how to run a Qlik NPrinting POST API from a QlikView reload script https://community.qlik.com/t5/Qlik-NPrinting-Documents/Run-a-Qlik-NPrinting-API-POST-command-via-Qli.... It is not a step by step guide to solve your specific needs but I hope it can helps.

Best Regards,

Ruggero

[Sahal]

Great article, however it does not answer the question:

* What Windows NTLM user should we use? - Is it the service account for Nprinting services? e.g. DOMAIN\ServiceAccount

* The URL https://yourNprintingServer:4993/api/v1/login/ntlm should  we be able to access the URL from a browser? 

* The trusted origin does not have https only http, however should that matter? - Should the origon name be Server Name and value(URL) http://ServerName ?

[Ruggero_Piccoli]

Hi,

If you are not familiar with Qlik NPrinting APIs I suggest you to start by reading the help site at https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/May2021/Content/NPrinting/Extending/Intro-Extending.htm and do some familiarization tests by using a third party app like PostMan (we are not affiliate with them. You can use the app you prefer). My suggestion is to test all steps you want to do in PostMan and move to the development part only after they works perfectly.

You have to create an NPrinting user with associated the related domain user and assign to it a security role with the rights to run API calls. Details are in the User Settings chapter of the linked page.

The URL https://yourNprintingServer:4993/api/v1/login/ntlmis the API endpoint to login. You do a POST call https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/May2021/APIs/NP+API/index.html?page=14 to that endpoint and you get back the session token. You need a POST call because later (see my tutorial) you have to run another POST call.

In the trusted origin you have to set http or https based on the protocol you are using. Normally https.

Best Regards,

Ruggero