Create an Excel Template

Form-based reporting provides a powerful method for making data available in popular formats.

The following topics provide guidance for creating a Microsoft Excel Template to use with form-based reporting and Logi Info applications:

• Creating the Template and Data Ranges
• Working with Charts and Formulas
• Preparing for Hierarchical Data

For basic information about templates and calling them from within Logi applications, see Form-based Reporting.

About Excel Templates

Developers use Microsoft Excel to create Excel Templates, which are saved as one of these file types:

• .xltx - called an "Excel Template"
• .xlt - called an "Excel 97-2003 Template"

These templates become the "blueprint" for mapping the data from a datasource, retrieved using a Logi application, into Excel worksheets.

These are the only file types supported as templates in a Logi application. Use of other file types may produce unpredictable results. In this scheme, one Excel template populates one Excel workbook. You can create Excel templates that use multiple worksheets, if desired, to utilize 3-D formulas or to better organize template content. Before creating the template, developers should consider the following:

• Which areas in the template will be reserved for data?
• Will the template include any charts or formulas?
• Is the data itself hierarchical or flat?

Once these questions have been answered, you're ready to begin creating a template.