Understanding reports in a page | Zoho Creator Help

Understanding reports in a page

In a nutshell
In Zoho Creator, reports can be embedded within pages to serve as part of a centralized dashboard, making form data easily accessible and organized with other relevant page elements.  End-users can view, filter, and manage data without navigating away from the page.
Availability
  1. Reports can be embedded in pages in all plans of Creator.
  2. Only the super admin, admins, and developers can embed and manage reports in pages.

1. Overview

Creator reports can be embedded within a page component to allow users to access detailed form data without leaving the dashboard. You can also embed reports from other applications in your Creator account, enabling cross-application data views within the same dashboard. This allows interconnected business systems to improve their efficiency and aid in collaborations. Additionally, linked page elements like charts or panels can dynamically reflect changes based on embedded report interactions, creating a responsive user experience.
These embedded reports can have interactive features like search, quick and custom filters, sorting, and more, according to the configured properties of the report component. But if required, the report's original properties can be disabled/enabled specifically for the embedded report from the element's Properties configuration.
In Zoho Creator, a report can be embedded using one of two layout options:
  1. Embed as-is: Displays the report directly on the page in its original view.
  2. Embed as a CTA button: Shows a call-to-action button that opens the report in a separate view when clicked.
Embed as report
The target report will be directly embedded and displayed within the page. Users can view and manage data without navigating to a different screen.
While embedding a report as it is on a page, you can configure the following:
  1. Actions - The end-user can be allowed or restricted from adding, editing, duplicating, and deleting individual records.
  2. Search & Filters - The advanced search feature using query builder in the live mode of the embedded report can be enabled/disabled. When using advanced search, you can choose how to save the changes made to a report:
    1. In the current report – Displays only the filtered records, both in the standalone report component and in any embedded version on a page.
    2. As a new report – Creates a new report that contains only the filtered records.
    3. As a custom filter – Saves the criteria as a reusable filter for the report, which also applies to its embedded version.

  1. Print & Export - The printing and exporting actions of records can be allowed or restricted.
  2. Miscellaneous - The record count can be shown or hidden at the bottom of the embedded report.
  3. Bulk Actions - The end-user can be allowed or restricted from bulk actions such as editing, duplicating, and deleting multiple records at once.
  4. Allow public access - If the report is embedded on a published page, it will be displayed only if Allow public access is enabled for it, given the report is also published. Upon enabling, non-Zoho users can view and manage record data through the embedded report from the live mode of this published page.
Notes
Note:
  1. Regardless of Allow public access being enabled, the report needs to first be published from the Operations module for it to appear on the published page.
  2. By default, Allow public access will be disabled.
Further, a filter can be added while configuring the embedded report to display a specific set of records on the page. This can be enabled by building a condition according to your requirements. This will be applied only for the embedded element and not to the original report component.

Embed as button
The target report will be opened as a popup, in the same window, or another one when a button is clicked. This keeps the page clean while still allowing quick report access.
If a report is embedded as a button, it acts as a panel with a button element in it. It works as an interactive element that can initiate or perform the action of opening a Creator report component. The display, action, and style properties for the button can be configured accordingly, and text or image panel elements can be added to give more context. To learn more about the button as a panel element, check out the Understanding panels page.

    1.1. Use cases

    1. Say a logistics company uses two Zoho Creator applications:
    1. Fleet Operations (App A) for managing vehicle assignments, trip schedules, and driver interactions, and
    2. Fleet Maintenance (App B) for tracking service records, inspections, and repair history.
    To give operating drivers better visibility into vehicle health, a Vehicle Maintenance report from App B is embedded directly into App A’s dashboard. This pulls live data from App B and allows drivers to view the latest maintenance status of their assigned vehicle in App A's dashboard, without switching between applications. The advanced search feature of the embedded report allows drivers to filter out a specific vehicle, showing only its relevant data such as service due dates, unresolved issues, and recent repairs.

    1.2. Navigation guide

    After you've created a page in the edit mode of your application, you can find the report element on the left pane of the page builder. When Report is clicked, the layouts of embedding a report are displayed alongside, from which you can drag and drop the desired one onto the building space.

    1. Embedding a report in a page
    2. Understanding pages
    What's next
    Previous
    What's next
    Learn the steps to embed Creator reports in pages.
    Previous
    Learn about the embedded form element which allows users to add and submit records directly from a page.