Overview
All reports in the system natively support the ability for users to export the data to a CSV file.
Once the system has processed a request to export the report data as a CSV file, users can access the file via Report > Generated Reports section of Cumulus.
Large or Complex Reports
Some reports are designed to output large amounts of data. Other reports are very complex in that they need to pull together or aggregate results from multiple places across the database. These reports will take a significant time to finish and render the results on screen. This causes two issues.
- Users rightfully expect a web application to return pages in a speedy fashion. When that does not happen, there is a risk users will conclude that the page has 'hung' or the browser has crashed. This is unacceptable and amounts to a poor user experience.
- Extracting and displaying large amounts of data degrades the performance of the Cumulus for other users.
For these reasons, large and complex reports will only output their results using the export to CSV method.
Exporting to CSV
To export a report to CSV, start by finding the report using the same method as would be followed if the user was going to run the report in Cumulus on screen. A briefer version of these instructions is below.
Reports > List
By default, the Finance reports will be displayed on screen. Additional sub tabs present different reports.
Once the user has found the report, click on the Generate Report link on the right-hand side of the report's row entry, under the Action column.
The user will be taken to the main screen on the report.
Apply any search filters that may apply. Mandatory filters will be denoted with a red asterisk next to the field name.
Press the Export to CSV button.
The user will see an on-screen message Your report is being generated, please see Generated report section.
To access the CSV file, go to the Generated Reports section.