Reports output

Diana Davila

I am really looking forward to any updates on the reports output.  currently the output into Excel is not very professional and needs to be tweeked each time.  Really looking for a mechanism to set up the output each time so that it eliminates the additional resource for this.  

 

Katy Hodges

Hi Diana, is this strictly a formatting issue based on the way the data is displayed? Have you tried exporting the report to PDF? It has a totally different format and a nicer presentation. 

Michael Stadulis

It might be possible to try a document transformation of some kind.

Diana Davila

We use reports with so many columns that PDF is not a good out put.. aslo we like to change the name of the report and add some additional information to so that is where there is an opportunity of improvement on the output.  

 

When exporting to Excel the columns headers are really messy  

 

Hopefully there could be a report designer added later.  

Cyndie Leary

Yes, I agree they need to spice up reports.  I would like to see the ability to customize the output much more, be able to do calculations on the report, etc.  The reports are not truly reports, they are only queries of the tables.  

Diana Davila

I agree i love the function and the ability to schedule.. Agree being able to add a column of our own with calculations would be great..  

 

Travis

Hey Diana! As you have seen, you can currently export reports to Excel and PDF. Is there a specific format you are looking to export to?  If you want more control over editing and adding additional information to a report (such as columns and formulas) you could export the report to Excel, then import it back into Smartsheet which would create a new sheet with that data.

Diana Davila

Thanks for your feed back and I do understand that i can do that but  I am trying to eliminate the additional resources and hoping that in the future you take this as lead that we can have a more friendly report designer..

 

Currently i am exporting them to Excel and then doing the manipulation to make them more to the Client needs and the visibility more professional and etc.   and then send them to the client.. I am looking for in the future for us to be able to design the report and use your report scheduler for this and we do not have to manually do each time.

 

 I have worked around it but just looking for efficiencies. 

 

 

Oliver

Hi Diana

 

While there is no work around within SS at this time, have you thought about setting your template up and then just doing a formula within excel on the template that mirrors another tab?

 

Then, granted your exports from SS to excel are of the same structure every time (ie same number of columns and in the same order), all you would have to do is export it and then copy all the data from the output file to the 'reference' tab. Just make sure your master document has enough rows, and it should copy across all the data you want. If you wanted to clean the file up prior to sending out to clients, you could copy the data in the master, that are formulas referencing that other tab, as 'paste as values' over the top of the formulas.

 

Another option could be to copy the data from the output file, and paste in to your master template using the paste function 'match formatting' or 'without formatting' (I'm at home on my mobile so can't doible check that). That is assuming the output is the exact same structure as the master, but just presented poorly. you could always easily change the structure up in the output to suit the master, then copy and paste, but again that is just meaning more work every time. Depending on the frequency in which youre doing this, it may be worth setting up the master with a 'reference' tab. You could also store all your previous export reference tabs in the same file by simply changing the name of the old one to have a prefix of the date it was superseded for example. That's how I work my exports (not from SS but other programs/tools where I am doing bulk exports).

 

Anyway... I hope that made some sense to you, please let me know if there are any questions with any of the above. Good luck!

Diana Davila

Oliver Thanks So much.. that is great input.. This is similar to what i do know.. Just anxious to take away the extra resources if i could just set up within SS..  as we send daily , weekly, monthly reports to mutliple project clients .. So you can imagine the savings I could have  

 

Regards,

Diana

 

Jeremy Michels

I agree on the exporting. I have to export on a frequent basis. It is never usable format when I send into excel as far as presentation. I have a report tha thas twenty columns in it. It is a process to get the task done. On the PDF scheduler you can have options to adjust what is sent and how. That same option would solve alot of issues with the excel format. 

 

I currently use the scheduler in PDF to do our client updates. It works great. 

Travis

If you are a PC user, try out our new Timeline Maker integration which allows you to export your sheets and reports to a PowerPoint file. Here's a description from our apps page:

 

"Office Timeline is an easy way to transform Smartsheet projects into beautiful PowerPoint timelines or Gantt charts that clients and executives will love.  With Office Timeline, Smartsheet users can browse their sheets and reports from inside PowerPoint and instantly generate impressive visuals for important communications."

 

This is a paid application but comes with a 15 day free trial. 

Jim Hook

I've tried a few times to get more presentable reports out of Smartsheet by putting special rows in sheets with various font sizes and colors and using the report builder to extract just the data I wanted to display along with those special rows. It works Ok as long as you can live without calculations and a basic spreadsheet-like presentation is fine. These days I mostly use reports to generate the data I need, export it to Excel and paste it into an Excel worksheet. From there I end up using Excel's pivot tables to extract the data of interest, perform calculations and generate charts for formal presentations. Fortunately I don't have to do it daily or weekly so it's not that bad. Being able to add calculations to a report would be a big help but getting nice formatting and beautiful charts is quite a jump from where Smartsheet is today.

Travis

Jim - try out our Smartsheet Labs Chart app which allows you to build charts and graphs from data in your sheets and reports: http://www.smartsheet.com/apps/smartsheet-charts

 

 

A little bit about Smartsheet Labs: Labs is a place to test-drive new, experimental apps built by Smartsheet on the Smartsheet platform. Smartsheet Labs apps are not official Smartsheet products – they should be considered community projects and are free to use, but not officially supported, tested or documented. Please note that because of the experimental nature of Labs, the apps may break, change or be removed at any time.

Jef Forward

a trick we found for getting readable PDFs from either a sheet or a report is to increase the font size of the main sheet on the standard 10 say a 16 or 18 Font. Not sure that answer your question, but does work.

Dr. Holly Pope

I am not sure of all the formatting issues, but I wonder if a macro will help eliminate some steps for you. I have also just gotten into using the merge function with Google Doc. I have not used it with spreadsheet though. I plan to check that out, eventually.

 

Good Luck!