Multi Sheet Excel Output

Im on a roll with posts. This blog can be rebuilt ...

I received a question today from Camilo in Colombia asking how to achieve the following.

‘What are my options to deliver excel files with multiple sheets?I know we can split 1 report in multiple sheets in with the BIP Advanced Options, but what if I want to have 1 report / sheet? Where each report in each sheet has a independent data model ….’

Well, its not going to be easy if you have to have completely separate data models for each sheet. That would require generating multiple Excel outputs and then merging them, somehow.

However, if you can live with a single data model with multiple data sets i.e. queries that connect to separate data sources. Something like this:

Then we can help. Each query is returning its own data set but they will all be presented together in a single data set that BIP can then render. Our data structure in the XML output would be:

<DS><G1>
  ...</G1><G2>
  ...</G2><G3>
  ...</G3></DS>

Three distinct data sets within the same data output.

To get each to sit on a separate sheet within the Excel output is pretty simple. It depends on how much native Excel functionality you want.

Using an RTF template you just create the layouts for each data set on a page(s) separated by a page break (Ctrl-Enter.) At runtime, BIP will place each output onto a separate sheet in the workbook. If you want to name each sheet you can use the <?spreadsheet-sheet-name:xpath-expression?> command. More info here. That’s as sophisticated as it gets with the RTF templates. No calcs, no formulas, etc. Just put the output on a sheet, bam!

Using an Excel template you can get more sophisticated with the layout.



This time thou, you create the layout for each data model on separate sheets. In my example, sheet 1 holds the department data, sheet 2, the employee data and so on. Some conditional formatting has snuck in there.

I have zipped up the sample files here.

FIN!