Tag Archives: POI

Moving on with Excel Export part 6 : But now we Import

The previous 5 steps in this series (part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5) has been getting data out to excel in different ways this part will show you how to get data back into Domino again thru your XPage, this will give you the possibility to roundtrip data handling. Export all customers mark the rows you have changed and re import the data. Because Apache POI is installed on the server as an OSGI we have access to these classes in all java code on the server and that is what I’m going to show you today and how to upload an Excel file and read some data from a cell.

In the example database for POI4XPages there is a class you really need and that is the ImportAction this is needed to open up a workbook of a xlsx file you don’t need it if you are only using xls. This class is used for changing the classpath of the jvm and some security stuff so you don’t need to modify the java.policy file on your server (Thanks Christian for pointing this out)

We start with some OpenNTF data in Excel

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We create an java class

public String getData(java.io.File file,Integer row,Integer cell){

try {

 String inputFile = file.getPath();

 String CellVal=””;

 ImportAction ioAction = new ImportAction();

 HashMap<String, String> hsCurrent = new HashMap<String, String>();

 hsCurrent.put(“FILE”, inputFile);

 workbook = ioAction.run(null, hsCurrent);

 if (ioAction.hasError()) {

   Exception exLst = ioAction.getLastException();

   throw(exLst);

 }else{

 Sheet worksheet=workbook.getSheetAt(0); 

 Row rowdata = worksheet.getRow(row);

 Cell celldata = rowdata.getCell(cell);

 CellVal= celldata.getStringCellValue();

}

return CellVal;

}catch(Exception e){

return “”;

}}

lets look at the parts of this class

 ImportAction ioAction = new ImportAction();

 HashMap<String, String> hsCurrent = new HashMap<String, String>();

 hsCurrent.put(“FILE”, inputFile);

 workbook = ioAction.run(null, hsCurrent);

 if (ioAction.hasError()) {

   Exception exLst = ioAction.getLastException();

}

This is the magic call the the ImportAction class that will create a Excel POI workbook Object.

The following rows will get the first sheet in the excel file get the first row and the first cell and return the string

Sheet worksheet=workbook.getSheetAt(0); 

 Row rowdata = worksheet.getRow(row);

 Cell celldata = rowdata.getCell(cell);

 CellVal= celldata.getStringCellValue();

Now we need to create the XPage to enable the upload of the Excel file

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The interesting part is behind the read button onclick event

importPackage(com.xpagedeveloper)

var con = facesContext.getExternalContext();

var request:com.sun.faces.context.MyHttpServletRequestWrapper = con.getRequest();

var map:java.util.Map = request.getParameterMap();

var fileDataName = getClientId(“fileUpload1”) ;

var fileData:com.ibm.xsp.http.UploadedFile = map.get( fileDataName );

if( fileData == null ){

return;

}

var tempFile:java.io.File = fileData.getServerFile();

var Excel=new com.xpagedeveloper.ExcelData()

viewScope.data=Excel.getData(tempFile,0,0)

We get the uploaded file in fileData and retrieve the actual file using fileData.getServerFile() remember that this file is a server based temp file and with that I mean that you will not get the same same on the file as it was when the user uploaded it. And next I create an object of my class and call the getData function with the java io file object the row and the cell number remember that this has a zero based index so 0,0 is actual row 1 and cell 1, this is the result I get when running the code against the Excel sheet

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If you are going to loop thru a full excel sheet you probably need to rewrite the code but this will give you a hint where to begin.

Moving on with Excel Export part 5 : XPages Export

In the previous parts (Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4) we covered plain export, styling your exports and doing selective exports. Today I want to show you how to create more advanced and flexible way to get your data using a java object that we use for the export.

We start by creating 2 java classes one for the export and one of the Export Data

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Then in each class add implements Serializable and the private variable on the row below. This is so the java VM can swap the data out disk if needed.

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We will start by creating our data class, very simple. Check what type of data you want to export in each column, in my case I want to export

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And then we use the generate setters/getters function in DDE by right clicking in the source window

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And select all variables you want to autogenerate setter and getters for an click on OK

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Time to create the getData function in the Export class the important thing here is that we return a a java object of the type List.

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I also create the function as static because I will only run this function and return the data once. This is the code for the export class. The important thing to point out is

The I create the Exportdata object on each row and store it in the RowData variable

And when I have populated it I add it to the Data ArrayList Object the is returned from the function at the end.

In my Excel export component in All properties datarowexport and I select to create a wgpoi:ListObjectDataSource.screen194

And click on the buildValues property to add some source

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And we add this simple code to get the data from the Java objects returned you can expand you getData class and sending in filter parameters from the XPage as we did in Part 4 of this series but in this case the filtering will be done in java.

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But wait, you might say how do we populate the column data. That’s the great part of the implementation. You write the name of you variable in you data class and the getter will do the rest. so in this case it will call getName from your row class that is returned.

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With this new way of exporting you can combine the data from different sources not only one as I’ve shown in the past parts of this series of posts and giving even better exports to you users.

Integrating a better export into your application will make your users happier

Moving on with Excel Export part 4 : XPages Export

The recent parts of this series has shown you how to create excel exports from a view and also changing the layout of the reports with headers and logos. This post will show you how to filter the data in your excel reports both using keys and fulltext searches. Let’s get started.

To get some filtered export we add an combobox into our XPage and in this case to show both a Export with a key and search we have two buttons for the different export options.

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The code behind the combobox is a standard lookup fro the value data

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And storing the information within a viewScope variable ExportData

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The setup behind the buttons is the same as we done in the previous posts but we add a scriptblock before doing the actual export

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If we look at the simple formula for a key based export.

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We clear the ExportSearch viewScope var I’ll explain this later and assign the ExportData var into the ExportKey var. The view we are working against is an ordinary view with a categorized first column.

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What you need is assigning the key param with the viewScope.ExportKey. In this case I’ve also assigned the search param. But in an ordinary case you would probably assign only one of them. Depending on if you want to get all documents by category or by Fulltext search.

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The code behind the search export button is this

screen230We place a standard FT search formula inside the ExportSearch viewScope variable. Selecting all documents that the field Region has the value stored in the ExportData viewScope variable.

So exporting to excel with user customized data has never been easier. 

Apache POI for XPages has more options up it sleave so this series will continue so stay tuned in.

Moving on with Excel Export part 3 : XPages Export

Making you report look a bit nicer with some formatting.

Excel reporting from views can be so dull and boring the XPages for POI can give you more options in this matter and help you create some design to your report.

1. Customizing your template

Because POI is using a copy of you template you can customize your temple with logos and predefined information.

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We need to import this new template and change the startRow and template name

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In this case we start at row 12 below the logo and we assign the new template with the logo that we created. Note that the data will be placed on the row below the one you specified, don’t know why but good to know.

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And the Export will be a combined with the logo from the template and the data from the Domino view.

But we want more

2. Setting up a header for you data

This can be done in two ways 1 directly in your template but that isn’t good in if you want to add a column that you need to change the template or if you want to use the template for multiple exports.

So what we do is that we add columns to our Export above the data, we need 4 columns for this example.

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We click on add on cellValues and add 4 items of cellValue and as you can see we could also add data to Excel bookmarks. Could be handy if you have a multi sheet excel file.

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We specify the columnNumber, rowNumber and because we know the header value we write it but we could actually compute the value also. But a header in plain text is quite dull so we click on cellStyle, scroll down and set the property to get bold on the font and a bigger size.

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Your Excel export with a custom logo and a styled header is now ready. There is lots of stuff to cover with POI and application integration so this series will continue, the more I dig into POI for XPages the more I love it.

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Part 1: https://www.xpagedeveloper.com/2015/if-your-user-want-reports-in-excel-you-should-read-this

Part 2: https://www.xpagedeveloper.com/2015/moving-on-with-excel-export-part-2

Moving on with Excel Export part 2 : XPages Export

In my last post I wrote about how to in some simple steps generate an automated export of an view to excel. In this post I will show you how to fine grain this using the excel component instead.

Start by creating a blank excel file note what the sheet you want to place data on is called usually Sheet1 if you have an english version of Excel. Save and import it as a file resource in the database, name it export.xlsx

Now create a new XPage add a button and the Excel component POI Workbook

 

 

 

 

 

This is how the result should look

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Now add a simple action to the Export button

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Select the Excel Component and go to all properties and create a new resource template

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In the resource template specify the name of your excel template

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The template is now ready to be used and we can now move over to setup the actual data that should be added to the spreadsheet. create a new dominoViewSource

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Specify your view name in my case Images

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Look at your view and note down the column headers, I have 4 columns with the names Topics, Size, Created and last a calculated column called Ext

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Add four columns in your component

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On each column add the Column number in the Excel sheet where the data should be placed and the name of the column.

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In my case I ended up with this

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Now you view export is a bit more advance and you can specify what to export and in what column.

I will continue the series and show you more about the power of POI for XPages, stay tuned.

2016 Update that I got from a developer Lisa Gerlich that you might run into
I was having problems exporting more than 1000 documents using the
poi4Xpages excel workbook widget. I ended up posting on OpenNTF and
got an answer.
There is a property under the datasource property called maxRow. It
defaults to 1000. You can set the value as high you dare.

If your user want reports in Excel you should read this

XPages did get a great addon more than a year ago to be more exact 13:th of September 2013. It was when Christian Güdemann uploaded the first version of POI for XPages. Apache POI is a rather old apache project, 13 years to be exact. And there have even been a Notes in 9 show by Paul Calhoun on how to use the standalone version of Apache POI.

But Christians version makes everything that much simpler to get the Excel file out to the end user, start by going to poi4xpages.openntf.org/ or essentials.openntf.org/ if you want lots of more great XPage addons. Download the latest version of one of the project.

Now you need to install the OSGI plugins into your designer and to the server, and David Leedy as recently created a notes in 9 video on how to install plugins into the designer and the server.

And when you have installed POI for XPages in both places you are good to try it out.

It’s very simple, Add the poi library to the database you want to use it in you do this in xsp.properties in the  Page Generation tab

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now you are ready to create a new XPage, when you have created the XPage.

 

 

 

 

 

Drag the simple View Export into you new Export XPage also create a button on your XPage

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Click on the button and create a simple action

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Select the sveId, you should find the ID of your simple Export control in the list.

Select you export component and select “All properties”

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Fill out the downloadFileName with a name of you choice i.e export.xlxs

 

also select if you want if the view headers should be exported includeHeader and write the name of the view you want to export view.

Open up the XPage and click on the button and you export will be sent to you client.