What is NPrinting used for ?
Qlik NPrinting is an add-on module to QlikView & Qlik Sense that makes it easy to create and distribute static reports in Microsoft® Office (Excel, Word, Power Point) PDF, HTLML and Pixel Perfect formats. This add-on enables sharing reports between employees at a lower cost. Only one NPrinting license is sufficient for an use with QlikView and/or Qlik Sense.
Many WeQan customers who have QlikView or Qlik Sense have acquired NPrinting to serve a broader audience. NPrinting can be used as a simple platform for sending static reports, with the ability to choose sending dates. It can also be used as an alert trigger with the ability to generate a report and send it to the right person when a specific threshold/trigger is hit.
For example:
- You can choose to send a report every Monday to your sales team about weekly sales numbers and how the status of their objectives.
- You can also choose to send a report when a business opportunity has been in the pipeline for too long (“long” must of course be determined), or send an alert if a bid request has not been processed within X days.
Key points :
- Fast deployment : Once the tables, graphs, visual representations, indicators, dimensions are available in Qlik Sense or QlikView, creating and setting up the rules of a NPrinting report is easy, and usually done within 1 to 2 days for a simple report.
- Multisource : You can aggregate analyses from multiple Qlik Sense and QlikView applications into a single report.
- Report distribution : You can centrally schedule, generate and deliver customized reports through a variety of channels, such as email, disk recording, the Web and the Qlik NewsStand portal or directly on the Qlik Sense hub.
- Reporting and Microsoft integration : You can receive a very brief report directly in the body of an e-mail, or an extensive report that can attached to an e-mail in Excel, PPT, or PDF format.
- The Web client allows your organization to manage users. It is installed at the server level, eliminating the restrictions associated with stand-alone developer clients.
- Scalability : The NPrinting engine is multi-threaded and supports clustering, which means it can run jobs simultaneously for increased performance, even in high-volume reporting.
- Security : User role-based security facilitates secure access to data through centralized control and reporting capabilities. You simply choose which features and data are available to administrators, developers, report recipients or anyone else.
Looking for a NPrinting expert advisor ?
3 Favourite features
1) Reports in HTML or Pixel Pefect formats
The ability to create sophisticated PixelPerfect or HTML reports makes it possible to publish high quality images on the Web.
2) The NewsStand portal :
You can centrally schedule, generate, and deliver customized reports through a variety of channels, such as email, disk recording, the Web, and through the Qlik NewsStand portal. With NewsStand, users can browse, view, download and subscribe to reports online through a secure, centralized portal.
3) On demand reporting :
The on-demand reports function allows Qlik Sense users, via the Qlik Sense Visualization extension, to customize a report through selections on an analysis sheet and download it directly without having to use the NewsStand portal.
Example : if you need to make a quotation for a customer, you can select a few products & services and instantly get a quotation that can be sent to your prospect.
Points of attention :
- Combining licenses :
In some cases, it is necessary to combine both a Qlik Sense analyzer or a professional license with the NPrinting engine. For example, the NewsStand feature that centralizes and archives all reports is located in the Qlik Sense HUB. This functionality is therefore only accessible to Qlik Sense license holders and recipients.
- 2 license versions only :
There are 2 versions of licenses, a small one called Qlik NPrinting SMB Server, allowing you to have 250 recipients, and a larger one called Qlik Nprinting Server ,allowing you to have as many recipients as you want. The small version allows you to have 2 development licenses… The large version allows an unlimited number of developers !
There are no other licenses in-between the small and large licenses.
- Prices :
We cannot publicly disclose prices in this article. There are 2 products, with the possibility to buy or rent. The possibility to buy is only possible for customers already equipped with Qlik Sense or QlikView. The cost of this license is very quickly amortized when you have a high recurrence of reports or multiple recipients. This is less the case for occasional reports.
- Version compatibility :
Ensure version compatibility between QlikView-NPrinting, Qlik Sense -Nprinting or QlikView- Qlik Sense or NPrinting if you use the NPrinting license simultaneously with your QlikView & Qlik Sense environments.
- Programming a report from a Qlik Sense interface :
The on-demand function leaves the freedom to the end-user, holder of an analyzer license, to customize a report on the basis of dimensions and indicators available in the end-user interface. It does not allow him to directly program the sending of his new reports.
- Infrastructure :
The license must be installed on a VM distinct from Qlik Sense or QlikView.
- Multiple versions :
This module was acquired in 2015 by Qlik from the company Vizubi to join the Qlik product catalogue. Since then, the product has evolved a lot and we have already seen versions 16, 17, 18 and 19. Version 19 has many more advantages than version 16, however there are still differences in functionality that were present in version 16 that are not yet found in version 19. (See our next article on the subject)
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