Configuring Excel templates
Applies to JungleDocs for Office 365.
For a similar tutorial for JungleDocs for SharePoint 2010-2019, click here.
In this tutorial for JungleDocs for Office 365 you will learn:
- What Excel templates are
- What Excel templates look like
- How to configure Excel templates
- How to add Excel templates to JungleDocs rules
What are Excel templates?
You will use Excel templates when you want to export metadata from your SharePoint to an Excel file. You will add content controls/placeholders to the template so that JungleDocs knows where to place the metadata.
Things to know about Excel templates:
- They are assigned to rules
- They form the foundation for the Excel files you create using JungleDocs for Office 365
- They contain content controls / placeholders
What does an Excel template look like?
JungleDocs for Office 365 needs to know where exactly to place the data from your SharePoint in your Excel template. To let JungleDocs for Office 365 fill your Excel document correctly, you will add content controls (placeholders) to the template. Document templates consist of both static content and dynamic content. Static content is content that is always there and does not change. Dynamic content is that what changes for each version of a document.
Dynamic content
Dynamic content exists of the parts of a document that get filled in later and different for each document. In the image below, the dynamic content was automatically added to the Excel template by using JungleDocs for Office 365.
How to add dynamic content to a static Excel template?
To let JungleDocs for Office 365 add dynamic content into a static Excel template you will need to add content
How
to configure an Excel template?
JungleDocs for Office 365 needs to know where exactly to place the data from your SharePoint in your Excel template. There are two ways of doing this:
1. Enter formulas into cells
Using this first method you simply enter the values into the cells that will later be replaced by data from your SharePoint. This is the quicker and simpler method of the two. However, note that documents created in this way will not be updateable once generated.
Note
If you plan on using Update Document Content functionality, we recommend using the second method of using comments described below.
1. To get started, copy the content controls from
Note
After figuring out the layout and exact cells in the document, it is very important to format the cells correctly. Microsoft Excel requires that the cell type is consistent with the data that that is inserted. Default cell type is General and if all cells are left this way, some data, like dates and numbers, might not be interpreted correctly. To avoid this, Excel cells must be the same type as SharePoint fields. You can change the cell types by right-clicking on them and selecting Format cells.
2. Enter formulas into comments
Add a comment to the cell you want to be populated with metadata from your SharePoint. Remove the user's name from the comment and add your formula.
How to add Excel templates to a rule?
You can either modify an existing rule by editing an assigned template or you can add a template when you create a new rule.
Modify an existing rule
- To modify existing document templates, navigate to the source list/library that you will use to create your documents and reports and launch JungleDocs for Office 365. Now select the rule you want to edit the template for. Click on the drop-down menu arrow and click Edit rule.
- Select Edit document template. This will prompt the template to open in Excel.
Modify a new rule
1. Open JungleDocs for Office 365 and click Add new to add a new rule
2. In the Type & Template section:
- select Edit document template if the rule already has a default template that you want to edit,
- to add a custom template, select Custom template, then select Pick up a template from SharePoint or Upload a template from disk
