How do I save an Office Connector Report as a Template?

This article provides the steps that you need to follow to save an Excel workbook containing Office Connector functionality as an Excel template. You should do this so that when your Office Connector solution is used, the user will be creating a new workbook from a template rather than opening and changing the original design.

Steps
  1. Remove any values by doing one of the following:
    • Enter blank parameter values or parameter values that would produce no results and then refresh data
    • Refresh data using an empty database. Click here to download
  2. Open the Workbook Properties window
  3. In the Properties list, click TimberlineDataFolder
  4. In the Value box, type: Prompt
  5. Click OK
  6. Click Edit Links under the Data Tab
  7. Click Startup Prompt...
  8. Select the Don't display the alert and don't update automatic links option
  9. Click OK, then click Close
    • NOTE - The Edit Links button will be grayed out if the workbook doesn't contain any OC/OCI/LR functions.
  10. Click File and then Save As
  11. In the Save as type box, select one of the following options
    • Excel Template (*.xltx) - Use this if your workbook does not contain any Excel macros
    • Excel Macro-Enabled Template (*.xltm) - Use this if your workbook contains Excel macros
    • Excel 97-2003 Template (*.xlt) - Use this to provide backward compatibility with older versions of Excel
  12. In the Save in box, select your report templates folder
  13. In the File name box, type desired name for the template
  14. Click Save
  15. When you see the following message, click No
    This workbook contains external data. Do you want Microsoft Excel to clear the data before saving the template, and then automatically refresh the data whenever the template is opened?