How to export a report to excel?

[PaulAmmoun]

Hello,
Is there a way to have button "save as excel" while viewing a report?

Thank you

[txsiccness]

Re: How to export a report to excel?

Yes - use HTML rather than PDF for viewing. Viewing reports in HTML allows much more flexibility and is significantly faster in performance.. Exporting to Excel, Word, Text, and PDF are all options available in this case, just a click away :)

[Steve Wood]

Re: How to export a report to excel?

What do you mean by "while viewing a report"? What are you looking at? A PDF, a Grid, etc. Most things that are formatted for a report are not Excel-friendly; don't look good in Excel. Do you mean export some grid or result set to Excel?

[PaulAmmoun]

Re: How to export a report to excel?

Hi,
Thank you for the answers.
What I want to do is :
when the user opens a report, he should be able to export it to excel or some other format as many other report engine do.
Using html report as Riley suggested gives that option. The issue I am having now that the report needs to be a table layout which is not practical to design for complex report.
I tried to convert the existing free form report to table layout but it looks ugly :(

Thank you again for the answer.

Paul

[Steve Wood]

Re: How to export a report to excel?

You have three other options to export to excel:

1) Alpha has a built-in method you can find under Properties for a Grid or as an Action Button from any component. That option will just export whatever is in the currently filtered record set and has no options for special formatting.
2) You can use the .Net library to generate a native Excel file with ANY formatting that would be allowed in Excel if you were actually using Microsoft Excel directly. That option is more difficult to learn and master.
3) You can program your output in xbasic as a delimited file (e.g., CSV or TAB).

Here is the basic process for the third method assuming you are using SQL for your data:

export_field_names = "Field1, Field2, Field3"
export_col_titles = "My Field 1, My Field 2, My Field 3"
filter = "lastname = 'wood'"

dim cn as sql::connection
dim args as sql::arguments
cn.open("::name::conn")
vsql = "SELECT {export_field_names} FROM mytable WHERE {filter}"
vsql = evaluate_string(vsql)

'EXAMPLE ARGS
'add any arguments you might have listed in your export_field_list. Like if your list includes :companyName
'args.add("companyName",session.companyName)
'OR
'args.add("companyName",sql_lookup(xyz))


if cn.execute(vsql,args) = .f.
'some error trapping here
end if

lst = cn.resultset.ToString(-1,1,"",",",crlf()) ' IF you want a comma delimited output
lst = cn.resultset.ToString(-1,1,"",chr(9),crlf()) ' IF you want a TAB delimited ouput

cn.close()

path = "c:\exports"
dir_create_recurse(path)

filename = "somename.csv"

save_to_file(export_col_titles + lst,path + chr(92) + filename

'THAT gets you a file exported to a location on your drive, the rest of the code presents it to the user as a download option

e.ajaxCallBackType = "FileDownload"
e.fileToDownload = filename
e.Folder = path
e.Action = "Do nothing"
e.CSFilename = filename

[Anita Headley]

Re: How to export a report to excel?

I added the following code to my xbasic, but it is not working. It does not create the directory or save the file. Did I miss something?

ls_list = queryrs.ToString(-1,1,"",",",crlf())

ls_path = "c:\exports"
goodflag = dir_create_recurse(ls_path)

goodflag = save_to_file(ls_list, ls_path + chr(92) + ls_filename)

e.ajaxCallBackType = "FileDownload"
e.fileToDownload = ls_filename
e.Folder = ls_path
e.Action = "Do nothing"
e.CSFilename = ls_filename

[Steve Wood]

Re: How to export a report to excel?

Then either your code is not firing even though you think it is, or your server does not allow you to create a folder off the c: root, or similar issue.

[Anita Headley]

Re: How to export a report to excel?

By creating the folder on the server, I was able to get it to write the file to the server, but it still does not initiate the download.

[Steve Wood]

Re: How to export a report to excel?

Turn on the server logs so you can capture any xbasic or other errors. You need all of the logs except the Raw or Trace log. Logs on on the Alpha Anywhere server configuration.

[Anita Headley]

Re: How to export a report to excel?

I turned on the server logs. I am getting this message in the XBasic error log:
Thu Jun 09 13:20:07 2016

Thread: AppServerWorker2
Request URI: /TOCAS/tabbedUI_tocas_main.a5w
Script: A5W Code
Line: 4
<%A5 ?x_SYSTEM_STATUS.Output.Body.Grid_HTML %>
Not found
x_SYSTEM_STATUS not found.
Execution Stack:
0#1 evaluate_shared_private(
0#37 OOhttpdServerClientMIME(ptemp,"AppServerMain")
0#2 A5WCallResult = evaluate_a5w_to_response(page_contents,Response,quote(" " + eval_settings.global.Request.ScriptName),eval_settings,EVALUATE_A5W_TIMEOUT,RequestBundle.RequestInfo.Filename.Path)
0#41 x_out = a5w_run_Component(tmpl)
0#4

System_status was an old component that no longer exists. I removed it from the the Homepage and then deleted the component. I can not seem to remove the code in the Tocas_main tabbed UI. I delete it, save and close the component, but when I re-open it, the code is back.

[Anita Headley]

Re: How to export a report to excel?

How does this part of the code get "fired off"?:

e.ajaxCallBackType = "FileDownload"
e.fileToDownload = ls_filename
e.Folder = ls_path
e.Action = "Do nothing"
e.CSFilename = ls_filename

It resides in an xbasic function that is run AFTER the data is submitted.

[Anita Headley]

Re: How to export a report to excel?

Got the download figured out and other error in xbasic log seems to have resolved itself.
thanks Steve.