Where the files live#

Every Timberline report is a workbook. Knowing where those workbooks live, and how a job finds them, is the difference between "I edited it and everything still works" and "the demo failed in front of a customer".

The eight source files#

They are in Workspace ▸ Files ▸ Timberline ▸ Financial Reports ▸ Source Files:

Where they are stored, and why it matters#

All eight are in workspace file storage. That is the point: workspace files live inside the workspace, so they travel with it. That is why this demo system runs on your server with nothing to connect and no path to configure, and why you can move it between servers and have every job still find its source.

The alternative is a Network Folder provider, which points a job at a folder on the server's filesystem. It is the right answer when a workbook is produced by something else and dropped on a share, and Timberline's own internal build uses one. But a network folder does not travel with the workspace: a job bound to one needs that folder to exist on whatever server it lands on, with the service account able to read it. Nothing in this demo system is bound that way, deliberately.

How to change a workbook#

Do it through the application, not by editing files on disk. Editing the stored bytes directly desynchronises the file record and bypasses the store's change tracking.

1. Download the workbook from Workspace ▸ Files ▸ … ▸ Source Files.
2. Edit it in Excel, with the Reportworq add-in installed. The workbooks are full of add-in formulas, and saving them without the add-in available bakes errors into the cells.
3. Upload it back over the same file record, so the file's identity is preserved. Every job binds to a file id, not to a filename; replacing the record keeps the binding, adding a new file breaks it.
4. Re-run Test / preview on every job that uses the file. The list is in the table above.

The one rule: do not break the names#

Jobs bind to named ranges and worksheet names, not to cell addresses. Rename a sheet, delete a named range, or move a range a job maps a parameter to, and the job breaks at run time, not when you save. Nothing warns you.

These are the names currently load-bearing:

The scorecard also carries reserved names that the add-in generates for you, controlling how its dynamic-row grid expands. You will recognize them in the Name Manager because they are prefixed and look nothing like the readable names above. Leave them alone: they are not yours to rename, and a report that loses one stops expanding its rows.

Two traps worth knowing before you edit#

A parameter maps to one cell per worksheet, and sheet-scoped names shadow workbook-scoped ones. Timberline Sales Information.xlsx defines Market, Year, Product and Channel at workbook level and redefines several of them at sheet level on three of its tabs. That is how one parameter drives a different cell on each tab, but it means "find the Market cell" has more than one right answer, and changing the wrong one silently affects only some tabs. A template that needs the same parameter on two sheets needs a name on each.

Excluding a sheet is not the same as hiding it. Both appear to remove a tab from the output, but only one keeps its formulas feeding the rest of the workbook - see below.

Hidden and excluded sheets#

Two sheets do unusual jobs, and neither is a mistake:

• The board pack's data sheet is hidden but included. It holds the parameter cells, the recipient lookups, the slide title and the data reads that the visible chart sheets reference. Excluding it breaks the deck; hiding it keeps it out of the output.
• AI Context in the sales information workbook is visible but excluded. It carries 31 rows of guidance for the AI, purpose, questions it answers well, questions to send elsewhere, data caveats, so the context lives with the report and travels with it. It never appears in output.

Related#

• Start here · The report catalog