I’ve searched around a bit, and not seen this request, but is there a way to create printed reports with metabase? You know formatted form style reports with sums and totals sections (akin to SSRS style reports)? If not, is there such a feature planned for the future? Dashboards, and graphical data are great for quick overviews of data and trends, but sometimes, you just need to print some details out.
Hi @bmcgonag
What is SSRS?
I’m not sure what you mean by printed reports. Are you asking for PDF versions of the dashboard/question, or are you asking for the raw data behind the visualization of questions?
I mean more like a printed report from the data.
e.g.
a page with a title at the top, then some kind of summary data (like date ranges the report is based on), then some detail laid out in a grid usually, maybe separated with some grouping headers, then some summary / total data at the end. It’s a detail report that’s formatted nicely for reading / printing.
Example:
John’s Whole Grocery Sales by Day
Dates: 12/16 - 12/20
Total Items sold: 27
12/16/2019
Item | Qty | Cost per Item | Sub-total
detail row
detail row
detail row
12/17/2020
Item | Qty | Cost per Item | Sub-total
detail row
detail row
detail row
etc
Total Item Cost to Seller: $ 213.79
Total Amount Sold: $ 425.00
Total Taxes: $ 33.40
Total Profit: $ blah blah blah
Something like this. And SSRS is SQL Server Reporting Services (basically a report designer and engine for SQL Server.
@bmcgonag
You would probably need some table grouping (maybe #7521 or 8572) visualizations first. Upvote by clicking 
on the first post of each issue.
You could create a dashboard of several questions that would display something similar to this, and a filter dropdown where you selected store. Might want to do some of it with SQL, like creating mock table groups until the feature gets implemented.
I now it’s a little hacky, but until more reporting features gets added the coming year, then it’s a way to get around some limitations.
EDIT: I’ve seen more focus on reporting lately and think we’re going to see more in the coming year.
1 Like
Thanks, great to hear these features may be coming in the future. I love Metabase, and I think it has a huge future in this world.
1 Like
@Flamber SSRS is Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services. It’s ‘free’ with MS SQL Server, though there are limitations such as having to be deployed on a licenced SQL Server. Compared to other report writers, it has a more devloper focussed approach - the proper work is done using Visual Studio. The report files (RDL) are open documents allowing other report designers to use the same backen, but that but never took off.
Competitors would be Crystal Reports (my ex-employer, now part of SAP), BIRT, Jasper Reports.
Most of what can be done in Metabase could be done in SSRS. Metabase takes a very different approach, so direct comparisons aren’t really valid.
1 Like
There is also Pentaho Report Builder (https://help.pentaho.com/Documentation/8.3/Products/Pentaho_Report_Designer) commercial and community editions.