Just over a year ago we relaunched an Add-in for Excel which actually started out life even earlier in 2007.

Despite receiving a lot of interest in this Add-in (and a large number of downloads) we have so far been unable to release it out of beta - the main reason being stability.

I am not sure if this is the general stability of the QlikView drag and drop functionality (the Add-in relies upon first dragging objects from a QlikView document to an Excel file), the interaction between the COM and .NET worlds which the Add-in attempts to mediate or perhaps some other reason.

Regardless of the reason we have decided, for the time being at least, to cease development and support of this product. We are very grateful for all of those who have downloaded the product, reported bugs and suggested improvements. Please do contact us if you have any concerns about this announcement but also read on as good news follows below.

The good news which has come out of this is that we have already developed a replacement Add-in, completely written from the ground up, which is a more flexible, powerful and usable solution. The new product, named QVExcel operates slightly differently to the previous Excel Connector by connecting directly to QlikView Server instead of via the drag and drop QlikView OCX objects.

With QVExcel, listboxes from the QlikView application are automatically added to a new taskpane in Excel - meaning they are available from any worksheet in your Excel application but can also be neatly tucked away when not needed. Data can then be extracted from QlikView using a number of special Excel formulas which the Add-in makes available or by using the Add-in's API from VBA macros.

The following screen shots illustrate a couple of reports built using QVExcel:

QVExcel is ideal for those who have very particular requirements as to how their reports look and/or also need other functionality in Excel in order to complete their analysis.

If you would like us to send you a preview release of QVExcel please fill out this form and we will get in touch. More information can also be seen over at the official website www.QVExcel.com.

We have finally made live the new version of our website which now better reflects our commitment to and involvement in providing QlikView integration services - something we now have a lot real world experience in with customers and users in the USA and Europe.

We are also continuing to expand our range of QlikView related products

If you are a QlikView user looking to integrate QlikView functionality more tightly into you web, mobile or desktop applications or a QlikView consultant looking for support with current or potential customers why not contact us to see how we can help.

UPDATE: Please note that the QlikView Excel Connector has now been replaced by a new product named QVExcel (www.QVExcel.com). More information can be found in this post.

I have published a small update to the QlikView Excel connector - namely fixing the 'Available Fields' drop down in Excel 2007 (this should have already been working in earlier versions of Excel but as most users now seem to be in this version it seemed worth patching).

At present the drop down is a simple read only list, but it's useful if you are using the 'qve' function which is also part of the connector and allows you to evaluate any QlikView expression in an Excel cell.

For example in the following screen shot you can see the formula:

=qve("count(Title)")

has been entered in cell D3.

Which updates when selections are made.

This latest beta (version 0.4.5) of the QlikView Excel Connector can be downloaded here. Don't forget to read the other notes on this page regarding documentation and getting a licence file.