Downloading Report Templates

Silk Central report templates render report data into formats that meet your specific needs. Templates can take the form of Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, BIRT Report Designer templates, XML, or CSV files. Downloading Silk Central report templates to your local system enables you to edit them through BIRT Report Designer or Microsoft Excel or Word. After you download and edit a report, you can upload it to make it available to other users. For details see the related Uploading Report Templates procedure.

To download an existing report template for editing:

In the menu, click Reports > Details View.
Select a report that utilizes the template you want to modify from the Reports tree.
Click the Properties tab.
Click the download link of the template you want to download. The available download links are:
Generate empty BIRT report template

You receive the report data as an empty generic BIRT report template. The data source is already configured.

Generate .XLS/.XLSX report template

You receive an Excel file with a sheet that contains the data. You can specify additional information in adjoining sheets, for example diagrams.

Download sample Word report template

You receive a Word docx file that you can use to create a custom Word report. The Word file contains examples of how to customize the template to add the data that you need for your report.

Download report data as .CSV file

You receive the report data as a Comma Separated Values (CSV) file. Depending on your local settings, you will receive ‘,’ or ‘;’ as the delimiter character. The date is also formatted based on user settings.

Download report data as .XML file
You receive the report data as XML. The advantage of this approach over CSV is that you retain all subreport data. Accessing data outside of Silk Central - You can call a specific URL that offers the report data using the following format:
```
http://server/servicesExchange?hid=reportData&userName=<username>
&passWord=<password>&reportFilterID=<ID of the report>&type=<csv|xml>
&projectID=<ID of the project>
```
.
The File Download dialog box displays. Click Save and download the report file to your local system as a rptdesign, docx, xlsx, or xls file, depending on the report type that you are downloading.
Edit the report based on your needs using either the BIRT Report Designer for rptdesign files, Word for docx files, or Excel for xls/xlsx files.