How to export Lotus Notes views to a Microsoft Excel database
Exporting data from Lotus Notes views into Microsoft Excel can be simple. Learn how by using a LotusScript agent, a shared action and HTML table formatting.
Exporting data from a Lotus Notes view to a Microsoft Excel database is a simple process that doesn't require object linking and embedding (OLE) and is easily customizable. To begin, create a LotusScript agent that will retrieve all data from a Lotus Notes view and export it to Microsoft Excel. Lotus Notes users can then format the Excel spreadsheet to their specifications for reporting purposes.
This process requires a single LotusScript agent and one shared action to call it. Place the shared action in the Lotus Notes view that you want to export. The trick is to write a text file using HTML table formatting and save the file with a Microsoft Excel extension (.XLS). Next, you can send email messages to Lotus Notes users that include their reports.
When a user opens the file, Microsoft Windows will open Excel. The program then detects that the file is an HTML table and imports it into Microsoft Excel using the specified HTML formatting.
Sub Initialize
'I placed all of the code in a single sub
(normally I split it all out... but for this demo
purpose, I just put all code in one sub)
Dim doc As NotesDocument
Dim uidoc As NotesUIDocument
Dim tmpdir As String
Dim uiview As NotesUIView
Dim view As NotesView
Dim dc As NotesDocumentCollection
Dim ret As Integer
Dim session As NotesSession
Dim db As NotesDatabase
Dim workspace As NotesUIWorkspace
Dim tmpdatafilename As String
Dim tmpdatafilenumber As Integer
Dim memodoc As NotesDocument
Dim rtitem As NotesRichTextItem
Dim object As NotesEmbeddedObject
Set session = New NotesSession
Set workspace = New NotesUIWorkspace
Set db = session.CurrentDatabase
tmpdir = session.GetEnvironmentString
("Directory", True)
tmpdatafilenumber% = Freefile()
tmpdatafilename = tmpdir & "HRReport.xls"
'Open a file for output
Open tmpdatafilename For Output As
tmpdatafilenumber
Set uiview = workspace.CurrentView
Set view = uiview.View
'Print to the file some basic CSS for easy
formatting later if the users want a change
to the default.
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, |
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Table example</TITLE>
<STYLE type="text/css">
TABLE { background: #ffffff; border: solid black;
empty-cells: hide }
TD { border: solid black;
border-left: none;
border-right: none;
}
TD.top { border: solid black;
border-left: none;
border-right: none;
background: #C0C0C0;
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 11px;
text-align: center;
}
TD.viewname { border: solid black;
border-left: none;
border-right: none;
border-bottom: none;
background: #C0C0C0;
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 16px;
text-align: left;
}
TD.salary { border: solid black;
border-left: none;
border-right: none;
background: #00FFFF;
}
</STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>|
'Heart of the code....
'Print an HTML Table and then construct
the table from the column contents
of the current view.
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, |<table>|
'Include the view name in the top of the
spreadsheet
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, |<tr>|
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%,
|<td class="viewname"
colspan="| & Cstr((Ubound(view.Columns) + 1))
& |">|
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, view.Name
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, |</td>|
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, |</tr>|
'Start a row of headers (couldn't get TH CSS to work,
so I created my own class called top)
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, |<tr>|
Forall vc In view.Columns
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, |<td class="top">|
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, vc.title
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, |</td>|
End Forall
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, |</tr>|
'Now loop though all of the documents in the
view and create a HTML for each one.
'For each column, put in the cell tag.
Set doc = view.GetFirstDocument
Do While Not doc Is Nothing
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, |<tr>|
Forall c In doc.ColumnValues
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, |<td>|
If Isarray(c) Then 'Make sure you work with a
multivalued field.
For a = 0 To Ubound(c)
If a = 0 Then
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, c(a)
Else
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, "<br>" & c(a)
End If
Next
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, |</td>|
Else
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, c
End If
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, |</td>|
End Forall
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, |</tr>|
Set doc = view.GetNextDocument(doc)
Loop
'Now that you have all of your data, end the
table and html tags
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, |</table>|
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, |</body>|
Print # tmpdatafilenumber%, |</html>|
Close tmpdatafilenumber%
'Now you can either prompt them for where the
report is on their hard drive, or you can
email it to them
'If like email....
Set memodoc = db.CreateDocument
memodoc.Form = "Memo"
memodoc.Subject = "Exported View Report"
Set rtitem = New NotesRichTextItem
(memodoc, "Body")
Call rtitem.AppendText(memodoc.Subject(0))
Call rtitem.AppendText(Chr$(10) & Chr$(10))
Call rtitem.AppendText("Open the attached file
in Excel to view the report.")
Call rtitem.AppendText(Chr$(10) & Chr$(10))
Set object = rtitem.EmbedObject _
( EMBED_ATTACHMENT, "", tmpdatafilename)
memodoc.SendTo = session.UserName
Call memodoc.Send(False)
Kill tmpdatafilename ' Delete the file from the
users hard drive if you email the report.
Messagebox "Please check your inbox for the
report", 0 + 64, "Report Complete"
End Sub
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