embedding excel into form lotus domino

Question

I need to embed an excel sheet into a form so multiple users can fill in their part of the sheet. When I save the document, without editing the excel file I embedded, I can open the document in a view. If I want to edit the document I just saved, I get the following msg: http://i.imgur.com/ldKomrg.png Another issue is, when I fill in some parts of the excel table and save the excel and then save the form, on the view pane I see the document but when I want to access it I get the following msg : "Document has been deleted." Is there some work-around to make the document not read-only so the excel file could be modified? or some other method to insert the excel file into a form? The functionality that I am trying to achieve is multiple users filling in same excel through lotus notes client.
I am working with lotus notes/domino 8.5 and the database is local.

Answer 1

When you add an OLE object to a form in Lotus Notes, you need to tell the Notes whether you want a new copy of the object to be created for each document. If you don't, then Notes simply launches the object that is on the form -- the same object for every user and every document that uses the form, and it is read-only.

To do this, you need to add a Rich Text field somewhere on the form, go to the Form Properties dialog, click on the Launch tab (looks vaguely like a rocket), select Auto-Launch "-First OLE Object-", and Create Object in Field "-First Rich Text Field-". This way, every time you create a document with the form, a new copy of the object will be created will be saved with the document, which also allows it to be editable when you re-open the document.

Answer 2

Another option for you to consider may be to store the actual Excel file on a shared network drive and only store a reference to it in Lotus Notes (IE path and filename). You could have a button in Notes that opens the Excel file (script) given this path/filename. The script needs to check that the Excel file can be opened for read/write access (IE no lock on it as in use by someone else) and if not then report to the user that it's currently being edited.

I guess there will be a final 'complete' status for the Excel document - maybe at this point you grab the Excel file and embed in the Notes Document - and then set a status flag in the Notes document as complete (or whatever) for view purposes.

Just a thought & good luck.