# Passing Environment Variables / User Data to Collabora Online
**URL:** https://forum.collaboraonline.com/t/passing-environment-variables-user-data-to-collabora-online/4799
**Category:** Installation & Configuration
**Created:** [June 24, 2026, 7:11am UTC](https://forum.collaboraonline.com/t/passing-environment-variables-user-data-to-collabora-online/4799 "2026-06-24T07:11:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@alimmroth](https://forum.collaboraonline.com/u/alimmroth)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2026, 7:11am UTC](https://forum.collaboraonline.com/t/passing-environment-variables-user-data-to-collabora-online/4799/1 "2026-06-24T07:11:32Z")
Is there a method to pass environment variables to a collabora instance, when opening a file for editing, to make them available inside the document?
It would be very helpful if Nextcloud Office for example could pass user attributes (like Name, E-Mail, Address, etc…) to collabora online when opening a text document, like a letter template, so they become available inside the document and could be auto-filled.
If this feature is not present right now, I would write a feature-request.
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### Author:  [@darshan](https://forum.collaboraonline.com/u/darshan)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2026, 5:59am UTC](https://forum.collaboraonline.com/t/passing-environment-variables-user-data-to-collabora-online/4799/2 "2026-06-26T05:59:52Z")
Hey @alimmroth Welcome to colabora online forum
@alimmroth nice idea — and good news, the building blocks for this mostly exist already, just not as a one-click feature yet 🙂
The “environment variables into the document” part isn’t really how it works, but the underlying need (user attributes available inside the doc) can be done through the WOPI protocol. A couple of angles:
**1. WOPI CheckFileInfo already carries user data.** When the integration (Nextcloud Office) opens a file, it talks to Collabora over WOPI and sends a `CheckFileInfo` response that includes fields like `UserFriendlyName`, plus `UserExtraInfo` and `UserPrivateInfo` for arbitrary extra attributes. So the host (Nextcloud) is the right place to inject Name / E-Mail / Address etc. The limitation today is that Nextcloud Office only populates a subset of these, and there’s no built-in mapping of “user profile field → document field.”
**2. Auto-fill inside the document** is a separate piece. Even with the data flowing in, something has to drop it into the letter template. The realistic paths are: document fields/placeholders filled via a macro, or the new content-control / form-field features. There isn’t a turnkey “merge my profile into this template on open” flow right now.
So short version: the data transport exists (WOPI user info), the auto-fill-into-template glue is what’s missing. A feature request is absolutely worth filing — I’d frame it as **“map Nextcloud user profile attributes to document fields/placeholders on open”** rather than “pass env variables,” since that’ll land better with how the WOPI flow actually works. The Nextcloud `richdocuments` repo on GitHub is probably the right place for the integration side, and engine Collabora for the templating side.
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### Author:  [@alimmroth](https://forum.collaboraonline.com/u/alimmroth)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2026, 11:07am UTC](https://forum.collaboraonline.com/t/passing-environment-variables-user-data-to-collabora-online/4799/3 "2026-06-26T11:07:34Z")
Hi darshan, thank you very much for your valuable reply! 🙂 I will likely file requests on both ends, so this can hopefully be made possible.