Share or export your work
1. Overview
In View mode, you can share your dashboard as a URL link or export it to other formats such as CSV, Excel, Image, PDF, and PowerPoint.
Related video: Sharing and Exporting
2. Share options
2.1. Link (URL)
The Link option gives you a URL for viewing your current dashboard, report, or other view. You can bookmark it in your browser, or send it to someone else. Changes you've made such as filtering and sorting will be included in this link.
Go to the toolbar and click Share, then click Link.
In the Share dialog, the Link field holds the URL. Click Copy to clipboard to quickly copy it and then paste it elsewhere.
If the person you're sharing with doesn't already have access to this item, use the Give Others Access section to select them. For example, dashboards you create in My Project are only accessible to you by default.
In the View Options section, an option is checked initially so that the dashboard/view is opened by itself full-screen, with no access to Dundas BI's menu, toolbar, or taskbar. You can click to open this section and choose a different option.
Finally, click the submit button at the bottom of the dialog to apply any changes you made.
2.2. Image
The Image option lets you export your entire dashboard, scorecard or a specific visualization within the dashboard, as a PNG image file.
While viewing a dashboard, go to the toolbar and click Share, then click Image.
This opens the Export dialog with the Export Format set to Image.
The initial settings export the entire dashboard to an image. You can also select a specific visualization within the dashboard to be exported by setting Export Selection to Single Item. In this case, use the dropdown list to select the visualization you want.
Click the submit button at the bottom to begin the export. Once the export is done, click View the created export to download the image file (e.g., Dashboard1 - chart 2.png)
2.3. Excel
You can export your entire view or selected visualizations (including those in an embedded view ) to the Microsoft Excel format (XLSX).
Click Share in the toolbar, then click Excel.
In the Export dialog, set Export Selection to Entire View if you want to export the entire dashboard or report. Or, set it to Selected Items in order to choose the visualization(s) you want to export.
Optionally, select the Include an image of each item checkbox if you want an image of each visualization to be added to the resulting Excel file.
Select Include Parameter Values if you want filter/parameter settings included in the resulting Excel file.
By default, the resulting Excel file will include any customizations that were applied on a table visualization, such as font colors, background colors, column order, custom header text, etc. To exclude this formatting, you can select the Export Tables Without Styles option.
Click the submit button at the bottom to begin the export. Once the export is done, click View the created export to download the Excel file.
2.4. CSV
You can also choose to export the data to a CSV (comma separated values) file instead of Excel. In this case, only a single visualization within a view can be exported.
To export to CSV, go to the toolbar and click Share. Then click Excel.
Change the Export Format to CSV, and then select a single visualization to export.
Click the submit button at the bottom to begin the export. Once the export is done, click View the created export to download the CSV file (e.g., Dashboard1 - chart 2.csv) which will contain the data values displayed by the visualization.
2.5. PDF
Exporting to PDF can be useful not only for sharing, but to open a dashboard or other view in a format better suited to printing, or for viewing a paginated report including page headers and footers.
To export to PDF, go to the toolbar, click Share, and then click PDF.
In the Export dialog, select a Paper Size and a page Orientation.:
Click Submit to begin the export. Once the export is done, click View the created export to download the PDF file.
2.6. PowerPoint
To export your dashboard or scorecard as a PowerPoint file (PPTX), go to the toolbar, click Share, and then click PowerPoint.
Click Submit to begin the export. Once the export is done, click View the created export to download the PowerPoint file.
3. Options when editing
When editing a view such as a dashboard, there are options available to determine what's exported when it's viewed by others.
3.1. Prevent data export
If you do not want viewers to be able to export certain data to Excel or CSV formats, there are options on each metric set and each of its elements. (These do not affect exporting to image, PDF or PowerPoint.)
To prevent the data export for the whole metric set, click the Edit icon in the Data Analysis Panel.
In the dialog that appears, select the Prevent Data Export checkbox.
Similarly, you can prevent data export for each analysis element (measure or hierarchy). Open the Data Analysis Panel and click to edit the element.
In the Configure Metric Set Element dialog, check the Exclude From Data Export checkbox.
3.2. The Before Export event
It's possible to add actions such as a Change Layer action or script that will run only when a user exports to PDF, image or PowerPoint, without affecting general viewing. (Data export to Excel or CSV is not affected.)
To add one of these actions, open the Properties window with nothing selected on the canvas, and find the Before Export actions.
For example, you might want to exclude certain content such as buttons when exporting. You can add a Change Layer action from the menu - see this article for similar steps.
Or, the following script would change the background color only when exporting:
this.background = new dundas.controls.SolidColorBrush(dundas.controls.Color.fromString("AliceBlue"));
If you write script that performs asynchronous operations such as a data retrieval call during this event, you should make the export process wait for it to finish before it produces its image:
e.isAsync = true;
//...
asynchronousMethod.done(function (result) {
//...
// resolve the deferred
e.deferred.resolve();
});
4. Notes
- Generated export files will be saved in Dundas BI for 45 days. You can view the list of generated files and download them from your profile.
- If you expect that a particular dashboard or report will take significantly longer to generate export files, you can adjust the Export Timeout property for that dashboard or report. This property is located on the Main tab of the Properties window.