Excel Reports Improved

In about 5 places throughout Teamwork, we provide the option to export reports in excel format, but we cheated: we used to simply generate CSV files and download them as ".xls" files. The problem with this is that excel would pop up a warning message when the file was opened and there was no styling or formatting to the data - it was just plain ugly text.

This has been bugging me for a while so last Friday when Sam asked me to add two missing columns (Invoice number and was invoiced) to the time excel report I couldn't help myself.

I've ended up spending all of last Friday and some of this morning programming new Excel code that generates 'real' excel files with nice styling.

Getting the date columns to render as proper dates that could be sorted etc. broke my heart - it took me about 200 attempts to get it right.

Hope you like it! :-D

ps. Dan and I are working on allowing you to assign tasks to multiple people - it will be sweet!
4 responses
Cant wait till the multiple task assign.... It is the only complaint I have received so far after implementing the software company wide two weeks ago...
Hi Costel,

We can't wait to get this finished and live either ;-) The only problem is it's quite difficult so needs lots of time to get it right and so many other areas rely on this such as Daily Report, API, notifications, Export, Reports etc

It'll be worth it when we launch it!

Dan.

The revamped excel reports have a really nice look to them. In Excel 2008 on Mac OS X, the dates come out as a number. If you select the column and hit Date as the format, you're good, but perhaps this could be set from the beginning?

Regards,
Rick Cogley

The article is very helpful! Thank you, I'll be sure to use your advice. Personally, I had some problems converting excel files over to PDF. I got so annoyed from manually moving the information (such as commission reports, invoices, etc.) over to another document, but then I found this program at my work that quickly and painlessly converts my excel documents into PDF and ready to go templates and reports, saving me aggravating hours upon hours. It provides my business a simple way to make individualized statements for our business associates, taking our invoices and seamlessly placing the information in the awesome templates. Check it out http://www.nirvaha.com/excel-to-pdf.html