Share or export your work
1. Overview
You can share and export a dashboard, report, or other view. Share as a link to copy and paste its URL into a message, or export it to file formats such as CSV, Excel, an image, PDF, or PowerPoint.
Find the Share option in the toolbar when viewing or editing. You can also right-click (or long-tap) an empty part of the view to find it in the context menu.
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 while viewing such as filtering and sorting will also be included in this link (also known as a 'short 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 and you created it or have the Full Control privilege for it, you can use the Give Others Access section to select them. For example, files you create in My Project are only accessible to you by default.
In the View Options section, an option is selected initially so that the view is opened by itself full-screen, without Dundas BI's menu, toolbar, or taskbar (they may still be available from the right-click context menu). You can click to open this section and choose a different option.
If you are granting access to other users, click the submit button at the bottom of the dialog to apply your changes. Otherwise, you can just close the dialog.
2.2. Image
The Image option uses the PNG format and lets you export the entire view, such as a dashboard or scorecard, or you can select a specific visualization.
The Export dialog will open with the Format set to Image.
The initial settings export the entire view to an image. To select a specific visualization, set Selection to Single Item and then choose the visualization from the next dropdown list.
Click the submit button at the bottom to begin the export. Once the export is done, click Download the created export to download the image file.
2.3. Excel
You can export your entire view or selected visualizations (including those in an embedded view) to the Microsoft Excel format (XLSX) by choosing the Excel share option. Each metric set will be exported to its own sheet in the exported file.
In the Export dialog, set Selection to Entire View to export all the data displayed in the entire dashboard, report, or other view. The All Visible option takes into account visualizations that can be shown and hidden while viewing. You can also change this to Selected Items and click to select one or more individual visualizations to export their data, using the Ctrl, ⌘, or Shift keys on your keyboard to select multiple.
Under Settings, if you do not want to sort date and time columns in the exported Excel file and want to ensure the display format remains the same, clear the Sortable Dates checkbox.
Select Include Parameter Values if you want filter/parameter settings included in the resulting Excel file.
Optionally, select the Include Images checkbox if you want an image of each visualization to be added to 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., as well as include only the data displayed by data points in charts. To exclude this formatting, you can select the Exclude Styles option.
Click the submit button at the bottom to begin the export. Once the export is done, click Download 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, first choose Excel or another option from the Share menu.
When the Export dialog appears, change the 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 Download the created export to download the CSV file, which will contain the data displayed by the visualization.
2.5. PDF
The PDF option can be useful for sharing, saving for offline reading, or for printing. Dundas BI reports are also specially designed to be exported to PDF and can include page headers and footers.
In the Export dialog, you can change page options such as the Paper Size and page Orientation:
Click the submit button at the bottom to begin the export. Once the export is done, click Download the created export to download the PDF file.
You can also exit this dialog before the export completes, then download it later or manage the export process from your profile.
2.6. PowerPoint
The PowerPoint option exports the current view as an image slide in a PowerPoint file (PPTX). You can present this file, or copy or combine this slide with others.
Click the submit button at the bottom to begin the export. Once the export is done, click Download 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 a dashboard's 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 7 days, or the length of time your administrator chose for the Export Result File Lifetime configuration setting. You can view the list of generated files and download them from your profile.
- Legends are separate from visualizations in Dundas BI, but can be included in exported images for individual visualizations if they are placed within the boundaries of the visualization (including its padding).
- 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.
- Exporting of images, PDFs, and PowerPoint is performed on the server where Dundas BI was installed, so only fonts that have been installed on that server or included in Dundas BI's CSS or HTML can be used to render. If you specify a Font Family not available on the server or use the default font when Dundas BI is running on Linux, a different font may be used than the one in your own browser. (The Source Sans Pro font is included in Dundas BI by default.)
- If you choose the Append Date To Filename option when exporting, the configuration setting File Name Date Time Format is available for administrators to customize the date's format.
- You can modify the Company and Creator that appear in exported Excel and PowerPoint files with the Company Meta Data Text and Creator Meta Data Text settings in the configuration settings in the Export category.