Sending Qlikview Reports in Excel

Would not it be nice if we could send some qlikview charts by email to a recipient automatically?

By using qlikview OCX and a piece of C# code, we can do this!!!

Let's examine the attached solution:

1) We need an excel template under template folder in which the position and the name of the qlikview chart to be transferred into excel is defined.
For example:
In the screenshot below, the definition CH01;image;0.5 in cell A1 means, export the chart CH01 from qlikview as an image and resize it by factor 0.5 and position its top-left corner with cell A1.
The definition CH02;text in cell H1 means, export the chart CH02 from qlikview as text and position its top-left cell with cell H1.

2) The output folder is used to copy the template into with a unique name and transfer the data from qlikview to this unique excel file before it is sent by email.

3) The qlikview file(s) should be placed in the same directory as template and output folder.

4) The excel template should have the same name as qlikview file. For example: if the qlikview file is named as Contoso-Simple.qvw then the excel file should be named as Contoso-Simple.xlsx.

5) The email account credentials which will be used to send the email are stored in app.config file.


How to use the application:

Before using the application, provide the email account credentials in app.config file which is under reportertest\Reporter\Reporter folder.

1) Manual use: double click on the reporter.exe under reportertest\Reporter\Reporter\bin\Debug folder. In the opening screen:

• select the folder where qlikview files and template and output folders are located
• select the qlikview file
• make any selection in the qlikview file shown in the big frame
• enter email address to which the excel report will be sent
• click on Send XLS

2) Automatic use:  The reporter.exe can also be called from console or scheduled to run automatically in windows scheduled tasks. While calling from console or scheduling it requires five arguments:

arg 1: full path of the file

arg 2: user name (if section access is used in qlikview file)

arg 3: user password (if section access is used in qlikview file)

arg 4: selections to be made in the qlikview file 

arg 5: the email address to which the report will be sent

For example: The following console command will open the reporter application, access the contoso-simple.qvw file, then make the selections (20071 and 20072 as CalendarQuarter & Online as ChannelName) and send out the excel report to xyz@gmail.com.

Reporter.exe "C:\\Users\\Bilge\\Desktop\\HappyStartinUSA\\OCX\\Contoso-Simple.qvw" "" "" "<CalendarQuarter:number:20071,20072><ChannelName:text:Online>" "xyz@gmail.com"

Source Code

Here is the source code and sample files (template, qvw file): reportertest.zip

Qlikview: How to send a report by email from access point

Step 1)
Create a report on a qlikview application which has some dummy data. (e.g. sales report in the attached qlikview file.)

Step 2)
Create a field in the qlikview applications to keep recipient email address. (e.g. recipient field in the attached qlikview file.)  and display it in a listbox.

Step 3)
Create a variable in the qlikview application to keep a string which will contain recipient's email address and the name of the output PDF file separated by semi colon.  (e.g vPdfName2 variable in the attached qlikview file.)

Step 4)
Create a listbox in the qlikview application which will display the content of the variable.

Step 5) 
Create a button in the qlikview application that will call the following macro:


Sub PrintRpt()
        'print the report and get the reponse back in a variable
set printResponse=ActiveDocument.PrintReportEx("RP01")

'get the name of the PDF file created by the print action above
sURL=mid(printResponse.URL,3)

        'get the email address of the recipient selected in the recipients listbox
set recipient=ActiveDocument.fields("Recipient").GetSelectedValues
set email=recipient.Item(0)

        'set the concatenated string (email address and name of the PDF file) as content of the listbox created in step 4
ActiveDocument.Variables("vPdfName2").SetContent chr(39) & email.text & ";" & sURL & chr(39), true

'set the path of the folder in which the text file will be crated
sFile="C:\_QVW\PDFfolder\WatchThis\email_" & replace(sURL,".pdf","") & ".txt"

        'Export the content of the listbox into a text file that contains the email address and name of the PDF file
set lb = ActiveDocument.GetSheetObject("LB05")
lb.ServerSideExportEx sFile , ";" , 1 '0=HTML, 1=Text, 2=Bitmap, 3=XML, 4=QVD, 5=BIFF
End Sub


Step 6)
Write a powershell script that can read a text file to get email address and path of the pdf file and send it by email.

Following posts have related examples:
how to loop through files in a folder by windows powershell
How to send email by windows powershell

Step 7) 
Schedule a windows task which will monitor the folder for incoming files and trigger the powershell script to read the file's content and send email with the PDF attached.

Following post have a related example:
How to monitor a folder and trigger an action for incoming files, in Windows 7
The only difference from the above example will be the source defined in the XML definition of the event filter. Instead of  "C:\windows\explorer.exe", we should now have "C:\Program Files\QlikView\Server\QVS.exe", because the text file will be created by qlikview server.

Test:
Deploy the qlikview application on the server and open it from access point and click on the button to see the result.

Example File: email_report.rar

How to send email by windows powershell

The example below is built to run on gmail accounts.

Step 1:
Create a powershell file named as send_email.ps1 (you can simply create a new text file and rename it as send_email.ps1).

Step 2:
Open the send_email.ps1 file and paste the following and save it:


function fnSendEmail($Too,$Filee)
{
$smtpServer = "smtp.gmail.com"
$att = new-object Net.Mail.Attachment($Filee)
$msg = new-object Net.Mail.MailMessage
$smtp = new-object Net.Mail.SmtpClient($smtpServer, 587)
$smtp.EnableSsl = $true
$smtp.Credentials = New-Object System.Net.NetworkCredential("your-email@gmail.com", "your-password");
$msg.From = "your-email@gmail.com"
$msg.To.Add($Too)
$msg.Subject = "powershell test"
$msg.Body = "This is a test email with an attachment"
$msg.Attachments.Add($att)
$smtp.Send($msg)
$att.Dispose()
}

Step 3:

• Start windows powershell 
• change the directory to where the send_email.ps1 file is located (pls see the line 1 in the screenshot below)
• call send_email.ps1 file (pls see the line 2 in the screenshot below), like that, one can use the fnSendEmail function in it
• call fnSendEmail function by passing to parameters (recepient's email address and the full path of the file to be attached) (pls see the line 3 in the screenshot below)