I have an app that I’ve written and my client wants to access a reporting tool so he can build his own reports without coding in Django.
This is a really good idea as my client wants to pay me for building the app, not building the reports he wants. My client will be build a LOT of reports.
I have found Howto - django-report-builder that looks very close to what I want, but I’m wondering if there are other options out there?
Ideally something that has graphs would be super.
Django Packages has a bunch of reporting tools but most of them appear unmaintained (they dont support Python 3 for example)
This article doesnt fill me with hope 
https://number1.co.za/finding-a-bloody-decent-django-reporting-tool/
I would also be open to a SaaS package that connects to the DB.
Any Ideas? thanks folks!
A good resource for trying to identify options of this sort is the Django Packages site, in this particular case, the Reporting grid.
But, having done that in the past, I tend to look elsewhere. When I’m presented with that type of requirement, my first question would generally be “What tool have they used in the past to do this sort of work?” Frequently, I get answers like “Access” or “Excel” or “TIBCO”.
In those cases, what I’ve done is create a read-only account on the database that has read access on the tables they need for their reports, produce a nice schema diagram, and send them off on their merry way. (In one case, when working with a particularly gnarly schema, we also developed a set of custom views that they could query directly.)
So my real point is that for it to be effective for them, it should be something they’re already using and are familiar with. That’s going to go a lot farther for them than trying to build your own.
1 Like
I’ve normally used SaaS tools for this in the past. Some options:
- Sisense - aimed at larger companies, very flexible, kind of what django-report-builder aspires to be
- Looker - similar to Sisense
- Redash - aimed at smaller companies, but needs you to code the SQL queries for users
- Retool - a “build your own apps” platform
Other options include django-import-export which allows users to download results from the admin as CSV or Excel or whatever, which would fit with Ken’s suggestion of letting users keep with the tools they know.
1 Like
Hi @adamchainz
These tools look like they need a DRF installed so they can access appropriate endpoints.
Is this how you integrate them?
I very much like how you can do a query and say “yeah - give me a graph of that” and it’s done. So much time saved!
No all the tools I listed connect direct with your database.
1 Like