Configuring Reports — Format

The Format page of the New/Edit Report Configuration dialog box defines the format in which you want your report saved.

Report format

Reports can be saved as Excel (XLSX), PDF, CSV, XML or HTML files. The location for these files is configured on the Storage tab.

You can preview the report as configured before saving any changes. Previewing a full report can take a while to generate, so we recommend previewing with a small amount of data, confirm the columns, sorting, and formatting is what you want, and then expand the scale as required before running the final version.

The report will be stored in your computer's temp directory and opened with the default Windows application for the specified file type.

For CSV reports, by default the format of the report will follow the column definitions with column headers. An option exists to remove the column headers.

For XLSX and PDF reports, their format is driven by a template file. More information about the template file is available in Configuring the Report Module Template File. Reports can either use the default template file set in the Report Module configuration, or override to use a custom template.

For HTML reports, their format is driven by a style sheet file using stylesheet language transformations (XLST). A default style sheet is provided; however, custom HTML report formats can be created by supplying a custom style sheet file. HTML reports can be attached to emails, like the other formats, as well as can be embedded in the body of the email. Reports can either use the default style sheet file set in the Report Module configuration, or overridden to use a custom template. For example, if one report had a significantly larger number of columns than the others, you could make a template just for that report and save on processing time for your other reports.

Click Next to move to the next page of the New/Edit Report Configuration dialog box.