Running a Report Using Visual Basic Example

The following Visual Basic example shows you how to create a hidden instance of Microsoft Excel, open a preconfigured Historian report in that instance, and then print the report to the default printer. To use the example, you nmust modify the path of the .XLA and .XLS files. The paths that you need to edit are bolded in the following example.

To use this example, a user must have the privileges to run the collector as a Windows service in Windows and a default printer must be installed. If Historian security is enabled, the user must have iH Readers membership. Tag level security can override this privilege.

You can trigger this example to run on an event basis or on a polled basis. Most likely, you would run this example on an event basis. However, you could run it on a polled basis through the Windows Task Scheduler.

Sub CreateExcelObjects()
Dim xlApp As Excel.Application Dim wkbNewBook As Excel.Workbook Dim wksSheet As Excel.Worksheet Dim strBookName As String
' Create new hidden instance of Excel. Set xlApp = New Excel.Application
' Open the preconfigured Historian Excel Add-in report.
Workbooks.Open "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Library\iHistorian.xla" 
Set wkbNewBook = Workbooks.Open("c:\testih.xls", 0, False)
'xlApp.Visible = True
With wkbNewBook
For Each wksSheet In .Worksheets
Select Case wksSheet.Name Case "tag1" wksSheet.Select
.RefreshAll
.PrintOut End Select Next wksSheet
.Close False
End With
Set wkbNewBook = Nothing xlApp.Quit
Set xlApp = Nothing
End Sub