Hyperlink it!

Have you ever wanted to link to your CRM? Maybe a web site? From a table?

(For those of you who are not lucky enough to work at MarketStar, this example uses PartnerDynamics or 'PD'. MarketStar built PD to be the best partner relationship manager in the business.)

First, create your table. You need to decide what you want to link to. It can be a data source or form, anything with an ID. We'll choose the Partner data source for this example. Add dimensions for Partner and Partner PD ID. Add an expression to aggregate the field you chose, in this case it's sum(doors).

Open PD, then open any Partner. At the top of the new window, you'll see a URL:

Copy and save in a convenient place everything up to and including the "=". You're going to use this in an expression.

Back to Qlikview; create a new expression:

    = [PARTNER.data_id]
      & '<url>https://xxxx.partnerdynamics.com/xxxx/Content/DataEntity/Default.aspx?data_id='
      & [PARTNER.data_id]

Note that after the <url> tag, you'll paste the PD URL that you saved earlier. The expression shows the data ID for the Partner, then appends it to the link. When the user clicks the data ID, PD will open in a new window where they will need to authenticate with their user name and password.

Label it 'Open Partner'. Change the Display Option to 'Link':

Because people are conditioned to see links as blue text, let's change the color. (Qlikview automatically underlines it if it's a hyperlink.) Click on the "+" next to the Open Partner expression:

Click on Text Color and in the Definition box, enter:

     = blue()

Optional: Click on Text Format and enter:

     '<b>'

Make sure to include the single quotes. This tag bolds the text. You can also use '<i>' or '<u>' to italicize or underline.

Now, a couple of formatting tasks. Click on the Presentation tab and HIDE the ID dimension column. Next, Drag the Open Partner expression to the first column. Size your columns and table appropriately.

Admire  your beautiful table:

BONUS! PD isn't the only place you can link to. You can put in any URL. A very cool one is to link to Reporting Services (hat tip to Phil White for this one!) Check with your data specialist for the correct syntax.

CAUTION! Be careful where you add links. If you link your users to sites that they don't have access to, you'll get hate mail.