Where the files live#

Every Timberline report is a workbook, and every workbook is stored in one of two places. Knowing which is the difference between "I edited it and everything still works" and "the demo failed in front of a customer".

The nine source files#

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

The two storage locations, and why it matters#

Workspace file storage holds seven of the nine. These live inside the workspace, so they travel with it: stand the workspace up anywhere and the files are there.

Network Folders holds the other sources. A provider called Reports points at a folder on the server's filesystem. Two things read from it: the Commission Statements workbook, and the PowerPoint template used by Divisional Packet.

The consequence is the general lesson: workspace file storage travels with the workspace; a network folder does not. A job bound to a network provider needs that folder to exist, with the service account able to read it. If you move a workspace between servers, the workspace files come along and the network-folder sources have to be re-created.

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.

For the Network Folder sources, replace the file at the network root on the server instead.

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:

Both of those workbooks also carry reserved names that the add-in generates for you, controlling how a 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#

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 parameter maps to one cell per worksheet. That is why LargeContributionForm.xlsx has both Employee (on the Comp sheet) and Employee2 (on the Sales sheet) for what is conceptually one value. Any template that needs the same scope on two sheets needs two names.

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