UPDATE: QVExcel is now released, and there is a new blog post describing the product in more detail here.

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.

I am pleased and excited to announce that we have just released QVGuard - a complimentary application to QlikView which helps protect your load scripts and macros.

QVGuard allows you to create a single 'master' copy of your QlikView application and unlock different features based on a licence file which you create and send to your end users.

For example, you might prevent the QlikView load script from running at all if no licence file is present, allow it to load 1000 rows of data if a 'trial' licence file is present and load all the data if a full licence is present. You can also use QVGuard in conjunction with macros, for example to alter how they run or perhaps by using a macro to prevent user selections if the licence file does not allow it.

There also many other features including the ability to expire a licence after a certain date or specifying that it can only be used in combination with an end user's particular QlikView Licence Key.

I'd like to give credit to the guys behind QVApps here as this project was started following a conversation with them and their innovative ideas for protecting QlikView applications. Judging from feedback from the recent preview release, QVGuard should be ideal for users publishing their apps through www.QVApps.com as well as a number of other scenarios and use cases and we are looking forward to hearing what you think.

For full details check out the website at www.qvguard.com where you can also grab a free fully functional evaluation.