SharePoint Integration

XLCubed have developed an option for tighter integration with SharePoint, allowing SharePoint to act as a repository for XLCubedWeb reports, so publication and report navigation is contained within SharePoint - this feature is currently in Beta.

Installing

There are several steps to complete configuration, this requires XLCubedWeb to be already setup and configured. There are 2 ways to display the reports, as standalone pages redirecting the user to XLCubedWeb or by creating a "Container" page so the report is displayed within a standard SharePoint page.

Option 1:

Option 2:

Custom Handler

XLCubed Handler Assmebly

The first stage is to install the custom handler for XLCubed Reports on the SharePoint server. You need to download and extract following file:

http://www.xlcubed.com/downloads/xlcubedhandler.zip

Once installed this needs to be installed in the GAC, the easiest way is to use Windows Explorer to drag the file into the \windows\Assembly folder.

Register Handler with IIS

You now need to register the Assembly with IIS, this can be done by editing the SharePoint web.config, usually in:

\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\80

in the

 <system.web>
    <compilation>
       <assemblies>

collection add the line:

       <add assembly="XLCubed.HandlerMapping, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=add6446b63d88928" />

in:

 <system.webServer>
    <modules>

Add the following:

     <add name="XLCubedModule" type="XLCubed.HandlerMapping.XLCubedModule, XLCubed.HandlerMapping, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=add6446b63d88928" />

Set icon file type

Download the following file: http://www.xlcubed.com/downloads/xlcubed.gif and copy it to the "Template\Images" folder, for example:

\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\Template\Images

Then edit "docicon.xml" in the "Template\Xml" folder (\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\Template\Xml) and add the following line to:

 <DocIcons>
   <ByExtension>

   <Mapping Key="xl3wbz" Value="xlcubed.gif"/>

Custom Report Page (Optional)

If you want to display the XLCubed Reports within the context of Sharepoint (Option 2 in the example screens), then you can do that by using creating a page containg a custom webpart.

WebPart installation

Follow the standard SharePoint guider, but use the following file for the updated webpart:

http://www.xlcubed.com/downloads/XLCubedSharepoint_Integration.zip

Page creation

Create a page to display all XLCubed reports in, in this case we'll call it XLCubedReport.

Insert a "XLCubed Page Viewer" web part and edit it:

Set the height of the web part and change the "Chrome Type" to none:

Under "Custom Properties" set "Custom String" to the following (updating it to reflect the actual xlcubedweb location):

 http://servername/xlcubedweb/WebForm/ShowReport.aspx

After setting the properties you should see an XLCubed error message, this is fine it's showing that the page is able to find the server but hasn't supplied a report to display yet.

Configure redirect

The next step is to add the configuration items required for the custom handler installed previously. Open the SharePoint web.config, usually in:

 \inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\80 

To the section:

 <configuration>
    <appSettings>    

Add a new key:

   <add key="XLCubedReportURL" value="http://hvxl3-sp/SitePages/XLCubedReport.aspx?rep=%rep%&toolbar=true" />

If you are going for "Option 1" enter the XLCubedWeb server address:

 http://xlcubedservername/xlcubedweb/WebForm/ShowReport.aspx?rep=%rep%

If you have created a custom sharepoint page then use that instead:

 http://sharepointserver/SitePages/XLCubedReport.aspx?rep=%rep%

If you want to include a toolbar when display reports, you can add the following:

 &toolbar=true

Searching

To allow published reports to be indexed by SharePoint you need to register the report extension type with SharePoint and then add the file type to the list of files to be indexed.

The SharePoint crawler will index the contents of the Workbook as it was at publication time.

Register file extension

Add the following reg keys (updating the version of SharePoint if not 2010):

 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\14.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.xl3wbz]
 @=hex(7):7b,00,32,00,30,00,45,00,38,00,32,00,33,00,43,00,32,00,2d,00,36,00,32,\
 00,46,00,33,00,2d,00,34,00,36,00,33,00,38,00,2d,00,39,00,36,00,42,00,44,00,\
 2d,00,39,00,30,00,46,00,34,00,46,00,36,00,37,00,38,00,34,00,45,00,42,00,43,\
 00,7d,00,00,00,00,00

 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\14.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.xl3wbz]
 @=hex(7):7b,00,32,00,30,00,45,00,38,00,32,00,33,00,43,00,32,00,2d,00,36,00,32,\
 00,46,00,33,00,2d,00,34,00,36,00,33,00,38,00,2d,00,39,00,36,00,42,00,44,00,\
 2d,00,39,00,30,00,46,00,34,00,46,00,36,00,37,00,38,00,34,00,45,00,42,00,43,\
 00,7d,00,00,00,00,00

You can download an exported reg file from the following link:

http://www.xlcubed.com/downloads/xlcubedsharepoint_regkey.zip

Add file types to be indexed

Go to the SharePoint Central Administration Website, under Application Managment => Manage Service Applications => Search Service Application:

Under "Crawling", select "File Types" and click "New File Type":

enter "XL3WBZ" as the extension

Sharepoint on different server

If SharePoint is on a different server to XLCubedWeb and XLCubedWeb is using "Windows Authentication" then by default the User's credentials will not be passed from XLCubedWeb to Sharepoint, this will prevent the reports from displaying correctly (you'd get an invalid or no login credentials error when accessing the reports)

You could configure Kerberos, this would allow the credentials to be passed correctly (XLCubedWeb uses WebDav to access the reports) or enable the following setting on the XLCubedWeb server:

   <add key="UseAppPoolUserForSharepointDownload" value="false" />

With that setting enabled then any SharePoint access from XLCubedWeb will be done using the Application Pool identity, so set that to run as an account that has the required permissions in SharePoint

Using

Once setup the SharePoint integration allows users to publish XLCubed reports directly to SharePoint

Publishing

Enter the SharePoint server for the XLCubedWeb server address and check the "SharePoint" checkbox:

You can add any sub folders directly to the address you enter, for example:

 http://sharepoint/SitePages/Reports

Viewing

Any published reports will be displayed and viewed within SharePoint: