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Excel report for sending to a customer?


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I contacted Zeiss yesterday regarding this, and had to leave a voice mail for... well, whoever gets calls about this issue. Until they call me back, i thought I'd ask the same question on here in the hopes there is a simple answer.

A customer has asked for us to provide measurement results in a format other than pdf, with a heavy emphasis on excel.

Using the default 'characteristic.xlt' template gives a report that looks good enough, but I'm a little curious about the reportini.xls requirement, as well as the embedded script in the output report.

Is there some way to generate a report that is just a basic spreadsheet without built-in scripts and local dependant files? I'd like to be able to just send a report that can be opened and reviewed without accepting macros and without needing special files to be installed just to review the data.
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I'm not familiar with Excel but the reports I generate thru Calypso seem to satisfy our customers.
I downloaded a merge file from here so I'm able to collect several reports and pass them along.
Eventually they want us to use minitab for spk and the like.
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The report is fine, at least as far as the content... but having to allow macros to run, and getting a message about "reportini.xls" with every file is not something they're too thrilled about, and honestly makes us seem a little unprofessional.
I've hand entered data from a dozen reports today just so we could provide spreadsheets that simply open without requiring anything from the customer... I'm just hoping someone knows if it is possible to have a spreadsheet like that created every time rather than the default.
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What version Calypso you running? Pi Web will dump to excel but I have never really used it that much for data.

Now the best "converter" if you will I have seen was some software that Ryan S. wrote called Enhanced Reporting Software. Will also throw in some SPC for you.

Using table files it dumps the report over to excel. Automatic once you get it set up etc..

I have it some where if you want to look at it.

Just throwing that out there at ya LOL
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I appreciate the offer, but it sounds like my question has been answered.
We have a capabililty spreadsheet already, and that takes care of any spc requirements our customers request; I was just hoping Calypso had the ability to create a standalone spreadsheet natively without requiring any additional steps or added software.

Calypso 6.2.04 (29.06.2016)
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Yep... looks like that's going to be it.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but is there some reason for this? I mean - what exactly are the reasons for the script and external file references? Why not just dump the data into the form and then *not* add a script and external file reference? Does the script actually do something useful?
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The Reportini.xls file is the map Calypso uses to place the data in the excel file. This provides all the name/variable references for the data, and show which pieces of data should be transferred for each feature type. Open the reportini.xls and look at what's there. It may help you understand. After the report is generated, the macros can be removed.
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Thank you for the explanation, but my point is... once the file is created, why do I still need the token list at all? The report contains all of the information it needs, and there is no longer a need for the file with the definitions. I know this, because after accepting the security pop up to enable macros, and dismissing the reportini error message, the report still contains the data and formatting, on a computer that does not have reportini available. So when Calypso creates the report, why not stop writing to it after the data is written? Why go on to add a macro with an unnecessary external file reference to a report? (And to make it even more cumbersome, putting reportini.xls in the exact location mentioned in the macro... still causes the pop-up.

I understand the "file... save as..." function, but after a 200 piece run, our customer is definitely **not** going to want an operator to spend an hour doing file save as over and over and over. The more I think this through, the more I'm convinced I'm missing a step somewhere. Surely the default report from Calypso isn't supposed to contain all of this extra stuff? There are extra forms defined in the macro with no way to access them (nor is there a need for them,) TODO sections, references to the D:\ drive... I'm questioning if this is something that someone here was working on, who doesn't understand the concept of a template, but this is exactly what was installed from the zeiss installer.

Is there a newer version of the software that doesn't do this?
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It's been a couple of years but I don't recall ever having to do a save as. My excel reports were uploaded to the network and everybody could open them without a prompt. This was on Calypso 2014. I will be setting this up at my new place but right now I don't have an answer for you as I'm still getting up to speed on other stuff.

If I recall correctly there was the need to use an older version of Excel to save the template as, or something along those lines. Sorry I don't have more.
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I'm kinda with Robert. I save across the network to a common folder.
I have no errors in opening any file. Though I know of the errors your talking about.
I found the attached file which I use to send reports. Neat, clean, one file.215_83d7ff89225d06f14bf5d587d82ef97b.xls
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Thank you.
I've written some vba scripts myself, including a "create a new workbook populated with data from another source" routine, which works just fine for our internal use... but that's the confounding part for me. It would take me extra steps to load up the new file with all this extra stuff, and all of the extra stuff would serve no purpose for the person who just wants to open a spreadsheet and look at a report... so I simply don't add any stuff other than the report itself. I stop when all of the data has been written. I guess I don't understand why Calypso takes the time to add a bunch of stuff to a report, stuff that nobody can see, stuff that somebody else then has to go through and remove either manually, or with an additions script or app.

However, if there are ways to generate a report without all of the added stuff, and that does not need macro access and locally installed files, that is really all I want. Supplying added scripts and apps to our customer is not going to work. The first question will be "why can't we just double click on it like any other spreadsheet?"

My bigger concern is adding gage feedback to the cnc machine... if I can't generate a report that is ready to use for feeding back to the machine without constant requests for reportini, then that is an added issue.

But it sounds like there is a way to generate a file without the macro security or reportini requirements... possibly this was fixed in a newer version of Calypso?
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