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Adding content to your Excel report template

You can add various forms of content to your Microsoft Excel report template. Add content as chart image placeholders, tabular data tags, cells formatted with native Excel features, and other formats. Content added using the add-in interface takes the form of objects. These objects can be added, managed, and re-used in the add-in window.

For information about getting started with the add-in, such as activating, opening, and connecting to app content, see Getting started with using the Qlik add-in for Microsoft Excel.

What can you add to a report template?

Qlik Excel report templates work with the following types of content:

  • Tabular data. With this form of content, text and numerical data values are populated directly into the cells of the report. Tabular data is added using tags. You can add the following tabular data:

    Tabular data. With this form of content, text and numerical data values are populated directly into the cells of the Excel report. Tabular data is added using tags. You can add the following tabular data:

    For more information about the available tags you can add, see The different types of tags.

  • Chart images are added as placeholder images. The placeholders are replaced with current views of the Qlik Sense app data from the latest reload. For more information, see Adding charts as images.

  • Certain text content not tied to the Qlik Sense app or the objects in the template. This can include manually entered text, such as titles and headers. Calculated cells can be placed outside the tag structure, allowing custom formulas to be applied to content contained within the tags. Keep in mind that unpredictable behavior can occur if you insert manual text incorrectly in the template.

Use levels and pages to automate the creation of separate sections and pages in your report, looping and repeating the generation of tabular and image data for a distinct number of dimension values. For information, see Using levels and pages to loop and cycle report elements.

Object types

Objects are the primary form of content added to a template. Objects can be created, edited, and deleted within the add-in. You can add more than one of the same object to a template. You can create the following objects:

  • Chart images

  • Chart tables

  • Variables

  • Expressions

  • Levels

  • Pages

The different types of tags

The following table lists the available types of tags you can insert into the template, and what each tag does. Use the Qlik add-in window in Excel to add the tags.

Available tags you can use in the Qlik Excel add-in
Tag type Description Example and format
Table A single tag representing an entire chart that has been added as a table. In the output, each column is generated in the same way as an individual column. <Table Name>
Column A single tag representing a single column in a chart that has been added as a table. Whether one or more columns are added from a table, the underlying template object is still a table. <Column Name>
Level A set of tags representing an instance of a level object. Between the opening and closing tags, other tags can be added, signaling that a new section (level) is to be created in the report, including these items, for each distinct entity upon which the level object is based.

<Entity Name_Level>

...

</Entity Name_Level>

Field A tag used inside a level tag, or in a cell on a worksheet defined by a page tag, to display the field values which are being used for each filtered section or page. <Field Name>
Page A tag that appears in the name of the worksheet tab, representing an instance of a page object. A new page is created in the report for every distinct entity upon which the page object is based. <Entity Name_Page>
Variable A single tag representing an instance of a variable that is found in the source Qlik Sense app. <Variable Name>
Expression A single tag representing an instance of an expression added to the template as an object. <Expression Name>
Deleterow A tag indicating a row in a table which is to be removed in the generated report output. See Removing rows with the Deleterow tag. <deleterow>

App selections

Selections you make in the Qlik Sense source app are reflected in the report template while authoring it. The selections are applied to the preview of the report you can generate from the add-in. However, the selections are not reflected in output from report tasks in Qlik Cloud. Instead, data reduction in the report output is controlled by filters you create in the Reporting section of a Qlik Sense app. See Working with report filters for more information.

If you do want to change the selections reflected in the template for the purposes of previews and image placeholders, you can change the selections in the original Qlik Sense app, and then refresh the report template. To see the new selections in Excel, click the Reload icon in the top right corner of the properties pane for the object. This refreshes the selections only in the selected object.

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