Excel Export

[Jeremy]

We incorporated Telerik report into our web-based cube browsing product earlier this year and it was very successful.

However the Excel export has not been popular.  The purpose of an export to Excel is to get the data into Excel and manipulate it further from there.  Unfortunately there is so much formatting in the Telerik Excel export that the result looks identical to the original report but is of no practical use.  In particular because of the blank rows and columns that are added to force formatting into the spreadsheet.

It would be preferable if the Excel export added lighter formatting.  It should never add blank rows and columns between the data.

We would also like to see drill-down capability in the Excel output using the Excel Grouping function.  We have done this using Reporting Services and an Analysis Services cube source and it has been very popular with users.

[Steve]

Hi Jeremy,

Actually the current Excel export is being created this way on purpose - so that it would look as in the report it is exported from. It would be rather unexpected to export a report and it would look totally different from what you've expected.
You can still achieve your requirement by nailing up the textboxes in the detail section with dock="left" except the last one which would be fill. Make sure that the detail section height is the height of the textboxes, so that you can achieve one row of data in the report as per one row of data from your db.
An easier approach if you are interested only in the data the report contains, would be to export to CSV - this is explictly data oriented format for your needs.

Thank you for the understanding on the matter.

Kind regards,
Steve
the Telerik team

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[New2UI]

Setting up the textboxes dock property to left and the last textbox dock property to fill and making the height the same does not resolve the issue.

[SUNIL]

Hi New2UI,

Did you find any solution for rendering report in true Excel manner rather than copy the original report into Excel?
I have the same problem as you mentioned here. The users are always complaining about Excel export, since the end-users expect Excel export to contain report data as rows and columns. Even CSV, causes a problem for end users, because the CSV export is a dump of all report data that includes a lot of unnecessary data and not just the data being shown in original report.

Would be nice to hear how you solved this problem.

Thanks

[Ram]

Steve's recommended solution is the idea how to fix it BUT one needs to do more (to keep in faith of keeping the data text height same as the real estate GUI occupies) also remove top/bottom borders & make sure there are no padding in between rows.

Idea is to cause generator to think that empty rows aren't needed because the data on the report exactly occupy the space displayed on the report. Kind of silly why data and GUI artifacts get to be treated this way, but as Telerik folks said they will change their engine in future to fix the problem.

For now, the above will work your way around the issue.

Thx,
-Gerardo Recinto ("G")

[Kevin]

I am new to Telerik Reporting and I am having the same issue this thread addresses.  I couldn't find another thread about this specific issue so I am writing here regardless of the age of the thread.

I am using Visual Studios 2010 Professional ver 10.0.30319.1RTMRel on a computer running Win7. I am using Telerik Report Q3 2011.   I am trying to follow the advice in this post but have some questions.

I have 22 text boxes going across my detail section.  If I try to set the dock properties to LEFT,  then ALL the txt boxes stack on top of each other on the left hand side.  So I have set the dock property of just the first text box to LEFT.  Is that correct?

The post also says to set the dock property of the last text box to FILL.  When I do that the last text box completely fills the detail section, overlapping the first 21 text boxes.

I think I don't understand the instructions properly.  Can someone clarify?

Next, I have double and triple checked and  all 22 text boxes in the detail section are 0.2in tall.  The detail section itself is 0.2 in tall.  But I am getting multiple extra rows when exporting to Excel. All of the details section text boxes are set to CAN GROW.

As far as the borders go, I have found borders under STYLE-EDGES.  I am assuming this is the borders referenced in the post.  There is no NONE choice under SELECT BORDER.  Do I leave it set to DEFAULT and set the WIDTH to 0?

Thanks for any help you can offer with this.  The whole purpose of this report is to pull data that can be manipulated in Excel.  Extra rows and columns make this unusable.

Thanks!

[Steve]

Hello Kevin,

Indeed this is a pretty old thread and back in the days using dock was the only way to achieve a proper "grid" layout. Most common cause of spacer rows is improper or missing top/bottom alignment of report items. Make sure the top and bottom edges of all report items line up with one another. The alignment and applying the same height to report items will usually solve the problem.
About the problem with Docking="Fill", most likely the order of the TextBoxes in the items collection is not correct. In other words, when docking, the order of the items in the collection of the item they are added to/docked into is taken into account.

Anyway since Q1 2009 when you aim for a tabular layout in Telerik Report, we highly recommend using the Table item, which has been created for this very purpose. Using the Table item guarantees that the columns and rows would be consistent and everything would fit in the respective table/excel cell.

All the best,
Steve
the Telerik team

[Kevin]

Thanks Steve!  I appreciate it!

[Kevin]

Steve,

lol, I am back with more basic questions. I now have a table in my report (using Telerik Q3 2011), and the table is set to use the data source from the report. 

If I put my table in either a header or footer section, it generates the table properly.  If I put the table in the DETAIL section, the report never generates.  The "Generating Report" message starts spinning and never stops. 

Can you please educate me on this?  I watched a Telerik TV video where they use a table in the detail section.  I assume I should be able to do this.  Can you tell me what might be causing this to never complete when the table is in the detail section?

Thanks

Kevin

[Steve]

Hello Kevin,

The "never ending" generating report most likely means that there are a lot of records that generate a lot of pages and this takes some time to process and render. Such issues are usually caused whenever you have bound both the Table and the report in which the Table resides. As the detail section is repeated for each record from the report datasource, the Table item would be repeated X times assuming your report data source contains X records. If the Table itself is bound to Y records and spans to Z pages, then you get the picture.

Greetings,
Steve
the Telerik team

[Kevin]

Steve,

Thanks again for your reply.  You were correct that I bound both the table and the report in which the table resides. Your explanation makes perfect sense and I understand.  I now have another question about best practice in terms of bringing in the data.   

The existing report works  - even with both the table and the report in which the table resides bound - as long as I put the table in the header section.  What are the performance implications of this?  Am I actually running the query twice - once for the report and once for the table? 

Here are two scenarios:

1.  I use the report wizard to create my sql query and bring in my data to the detail section on my report.  I now put a table in the header section of the report, bind it to the report datasource, and use it to roll up my data and display the final report.

2.  I create a blank report with no data source and run the table wizard to create my dataset.  The table goes in the detail section of the report and then I do my grouping for the final product.

Is 2 going to be faster than 1?  I assume so, but am not sure.  What is standard operating procedure?

Thanks,
Kevin

[Steve]

Hello Kevin,

To answer your questions directly:

• Am I actually running the query twice - once for the report and once for the table? - not if you're using the same SqlDataSource component, in which case the result set is cashed so any subsequent need to get data from it (e.g. print or export) would not query the database a second time.
• judging by your explanation, I assume you only use the Table since you need a Tabular layout. If that is the case, use the Table item which is created for this very purpose. If you need to create a more complicated layout that does not involve tabular layout only, then bind the report as well. However always have in mind that any item in the detail section would be repeated as many times as the report's data source records.

Greetings,
Steve
the Telerik team

[Kevin]

Steve,

Thank you for clarifying this for me.  I greatly appreciate your help and rapid responses.  

Kevin

[SHANE]

Hi Steve,

My problem is the page or report header length in the export Excel. Because of the header I am getting extra blank columns, not rows since I have a table in the detail section. Do you have any suggestions?

If it's just the detail section with a table in it, no extra columns at all.

Please help!

Thanks a lot.

[Steve]

Hello SHANE,

The page header section would occupy the size specified in the report's page settings and this behavior is by design. Can you elaborate how these extra columns are a problem for you? To better grasp the problem, please attach a screenshot of the excel file or provide us with the excel so we can advise you accordingly.

Regards,
Steve
the Telerik team