# Report Builder Pro with Pivot, Drill-down and Excel Export

> Nested pivot and cross-tab reports on any model, without code: follow links between records, add computed columns, highlight what matters, click any number to open its records, keep your own variants, export to Excel and PDF, email on a schedule. 40 ready reports and a daily history of balances.

- **What it is:** Nested pivot and cross-tab reports on any model, without code: follow links between records, add computed columns, highlight what matters, click any number to open its records, keep your own variants, export to Excel and PDF, email on a schedule. 40 ready reports and a daily history of balances.
- **For:** Productivity
- **Odoo versions:** 16.0, 17.0, 18.0, 19.0, 20.0 - Community and Enterprise
- **Runs on:** Odoo.sh or Odoo you host yourself - not Odoo Online, which accepts no third-party apps
- **Price:** 129 EUR, one-time, on the Odoo Apps Store
- **Technical name:** bambooforge_report_builder
- **Not for:** A report reads one model and whatever it reaches through many2one links. It does not join two unrelated models.; Numbers must be stored fields of the model itself. A computed, non-stored field cannot be summed by the database.; Amounts are added as stored. For money across currencies, read the analysis models - Sales Analysis, Invoices Statistics, Purchase Report - as the gallery does: they hold company-currency amounts.; A layout that produces more than 20,000 combinations is cut, and says so.; Reports are not placed on Odoo's own spreadsheets. With BambooForge Dashboard installed (Odoo 17 and later), the small Report Builder on Dashboards module installs by itself and a dashboard tile or KPI can show a report's grand total.; A share link shows what its creator can see; a link to a report of salaries is a link to salaries. Share what you would print.; The chart draws the first row level only.
- **Compared with the alternatives:** https://docs.bambooforge.dev/bambooforge_report_builder/compare/
- **Manual:** https://docs.bambooforge.dev/bambooforge_report_builder/
- **Live demo:** https://demo20.bambooforge.dev/odoo/action-bambooforge_report_builder.bf_report_action
- **Store page:** https://apps.odoo.com/apps/modules/20.0/bambooforge_report_builder
- **Manual last updated:** 2026-10-15

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# Report Builder Pro with Pivot, Drill-down and Excel Export

Odoo's pivot answers one question at a time and forgets the answer. This app
builds **reports**: tables that nest as deep as you like, run a second field
across the top, follow links from one record to the next, work columns out
from other columns, highlight what matters, open the records behind any
number - and that every reader can bend and keep as a variant of their own.

This page is the complete manual. Read top to bottom, it takes you from
install to a designed, scheduled report **without contacting support**.

## What you get

- **Nested, cross-tab reports on any model** - up to five row levels and two
  column levels, dates by day, week, month, quarter or year.
- **Links followed without SQL** - group order lines by the country of the
  customer of their order (*Order ▸ Customer ▸ Country*), with every access
  rule still in force.
- **Numbers that are right at every level** - sums, true averages, lowest,
  highest, filled-in counts, distinct counts, record counts.
- **Computed columns** with `total()`, `parent()`, `row()` and
  `prev()` - the column before, for growth month on month.
- **Period comparison** - the same numbers for the period before, or the same
  period a year earlier, and the change in percent, next to every column.
- **Fixed conditions** the designer sets and readers can neither see nor
  lift.
- **Share links** - the report for somebody without a login, computed with
  your access, until the date you choose.
- **Highlights** - rules and rank-based colour scales.
- **Questions asked of the reader** - periods, records, statuses, numbers,
  text.
- **Drill-down from any cell**, sort by any column, swap rows and columns,
  fold and unfold.
- **Variants** - per-user saved layouts, private or shared, one of them the
  reader's default.
- **Chart view** - bars, lines or pie from the same definition.
- **Excel with outline levels and cell colours, PDF**, and **scheduled
  emails**.
- **A gallery of about forty ready reports** for Sales, CRM, Accounting,
  Inventory, Purchase, Manufacturing, People, Project and Point of Sale.
- **A daily history** of a report's totals: balances as they stood on a past
  date.

![A report nested by country and customer, quarters across, with a colour scale](report-crosstab.png)

## Requirements

- **Odoo**: 20.0, Community or Enterprise.
- **Dependencies**: only *web* and *mail* (Discuss), which every database
  has. The gallery reports appear for the business apps you have installed;
  none of them is required.
- **Python**: nothing beyond a standard Odoo install (`xlsxwriter` ships
  with Odoo; PDF needs `wkhtmltopdf` like every Odoo PDF).
- **Access**: every internal user reads reports and keeps variants. A
  **Report Designer** (*Settings ▸ Users ▸ Report Builder*) creates reports,
  saves standard layouts and manages schedules. The administrator is one by
  default.
- **Network**: none. Nothing leaves your database.

## Install

1. Copy `bambooforge_report_builder` into your addons path and restart Odoo.
2. *Apps ▸ Update Apps List*, search for *Report Builder*, **Activate**.
3. Open the new **Reports** app. The gallery is already there.

## The gallery

The list is not empty on the first day. Some forty reports are created for the
apps you have installed - Sales, CRM, Accounting, Inventory, Purchase,
Manufacturing, People, Project, Point of Sale - each one a working example you
can open, bend and save under another name. Install another app later and
press *Action ▸ Load the report gallery* in the list view: the reports for
the new app arrive, and nothing you already have is touched. A gallery report
you do not want is **archived**, not deleted - a deleted one would come back
with the next upgrade.

![The report gallery](report-gallery.png)

## Reading a report

- **Fold and unfold** a row with its arrow; *Expand all* and *Collapse all*
  are above the table.
- **Click any number** to open the records it counts - the cell's row, its
  column and every answer at the top of the screen are applied for you.
- **Click a column heading** to sort by it: largest first, smallest first,
  back to the labels.
- **Swap rows and columns** turns the table on its side.
- The **questions** under the title (a period, a customer, a journal...) are
  the ones the designer chose to ask. A date question offers *This month*,
  *Last quarter*, *Last 30 days* and so on, or two dates of your own.
- **Compare with** (shown when the report asks a period): *the period
  before* - as long as the one asked, just before it, so *Last 30 days*
  against the 30 days before - or *the same period a year before*. Every
  number gets two neighbours: its value then, and the change in percent.
  Rows are matched by what they are (the customer, the country), so a
  grouping by date compares each month with itself; put dates across the
  columns and use `prev()` for month on month.
- **Share** makes a link for somebody without an Odoo login - an
  accountant, a partner, a board member - valid 7, 30, 90 days or a year.
  They see the report as laid out when you shared it, recomputed each time
  they open it, with *your* access, and nothing else of Odoo. The report's
  form lists the links, their views, and *Withdraw*.
- **Table / chart** - the same definition as bars, lines or a pie: the first
  row level, one series per column.
- **Excel** downloads what you see: your layout, your answers, the rows you
  folded left out. Nested rows arrive as Excel outline levels, so the workbook
  folds where the screen does, and the highlights come along. **PDF** prints
  the same table.

Every reader counts only what their own access lets them read. A salesperson
who sees their own opportunities gets their own totals from the same report
the sales manager opens.

## Variants - your own way of looking, kept

Change anything - the grouping, the period, the sort - and press **Save
variant**. Give it a name; tick *Share with everybody* to offer it to your
colleagues, and *Open the report with it* to make it your starting point.
Variants are yours: nobody else can change or delete them, and saving under
somebody else's shared variant makes a copy of your own. The report's
**standard layout**, the one everybody starts from, is changed only by a
Report Designer (*Design ▸ Save as standard*).

## Designing a report

A **Report Designer** creates a report in three steps.

1. *Reports ▸ New*: a name, **what it reads** and, if not every record
   counts, a filter. Pick the most detailed kind of record - order lines
   rather than orders - because a report can climb from a line to its order,
   the order's customer and the customer's country, but not down again.
2. **Open Report**, then **Design**.
3. Build the layout in the panel on the right, press **Apply** to see it, and
   **Save as standard** when it is right.

![The design panel beside the report](report-design.png)

The panel, top to bottom:

****Rows** and **Columns****

*Group by...* offers the fields of the model. A field with an arrow is a
link: choose it and a second list opens with the fields of the record it
points to, up to two links away (*Order ▸ Customer ▸ Country*). A date is
grouped by day, week, month, quarter or year. Up to five row levels and
two column levels.

****Numbers****

A number field with *Sum*, *Average*, *Lowest*, *Highest* or *Filled in*;
a **distinct count** (how many different customers); or the **record
count**. Each number has a short name shown in red - `revenue`,
`m1` - which is how computed columns refer to it. The eye hides a number
that is only there to feed a computed column.

Averages are true averages at every level, not averages of averages. A
distinct count is asked of the database again at every level, because
distinct counts cannot be added up; for that reason it cannot be combined
with a grouping that follows a link.

****Computed columns****

Arithmetic on the numbers of the same cell: `margin / revenue * 100`.
Four functions look outside the cell: `total('revenue')` is the grand
total, `parent('revenue')` the row one level up, `row('revenue')` the
row's own total column, `prev('revenue')` the same row in the column
before. So `revenue / total('revenue') * 100` is a share of the whole,
`revenue / parent('revenue') * 100` a share of the group, and with
months across, `(revenue / prev('revenue') - 1) * 100` the growth on
the month before (empty in the first column and the total column). Also `abs`, `round`, `min`, `max` and
`a if a > b else b`. A division by zero leaves the cell empty. Nothing
else is accepted - the expression is checked when the report is saved.

****Highlights****

A *rule* colours the cells that pass a test (`>= 2000`, `between`).
A *colour scale* shades the lowest rows red and the highest green - by
rank, so one giant customer does not wash out everybody else; tick *high
is bad* for overdue amounts and lead times.

****Questions asked of the reader****

Pick a field and it becomes an input above the report: a period for a
date, a search box for a customer or product, a list for a status, a
number test, or a text search. Tick **fixed, hidden** and it becomes a
condition of the report instead: set its value while designing; readers
do not see it and cannot change it - not on screen, not in a variant,
not in an export or a drill-down. (The report's own filter on its form
does the same for conditions nobody needs to see set.)

****Order and size****

Sort by a number, show only the top N first-level rows (the total still
counts everything, and the screen says so), and how many levels open
unfolded.

## History - what the number was

Odoo knows what stock you hold and who owes you money **today**; it cannot
tell you what either was on the first of last month. Tick **Keep a Daily
History** on a report and every night its totals - the grand total and each
first-level row - are written down, computed with the access of the user you
name. The clock button on the report then shows the total day by day, the
eight largest rows beside it, as a chart and as a table. Several gallery
reports keep a history out of the box: stock on hand, open receivables, open
payables, the pipeline, delivered-not-invoiced, headcount. *Write Today's
History* on the report form takes an entry at once.

![Open receivables day by day](report-history.png)

## Reports by email

*Reports ▸ Schedules* (Report Designers only). A schedule names **reports**,
**people** and a **rhythm**:

- *Send As*: Excel workbook, PDF, or both. Each report goes out in its
  standard layout.
- *Computed As*: the reports are computed with **this user's access**, and
  the recipients receive what that user would see. Choose somebody who may
  see everything the report counts, and recipients who may see it too.
- *To Users*, *To Contacts*, *Other Addresses*: anybody with an email
  address.
- Every day, every week on a weekday, or every month on a day from 1 to 28,
  *not before* an hour in the timezone you pick.

An hourly scheduled action sends what is due. A schedule sends **once per
period** whatever happens - the day, week or month it last sent for is
written on it - so a restarted server or a second cron run never doubles an
email. **Send Now** ignores the rhythm. A report that cannot be computed is
left out and noted in the schedule's chatter; the others still go.

## Access and privacy

- A report is listed to the groups named under *Visible To* (everybody when
  empty). That decides who may **open** it.
- What it **counts** is decided by the reader's own access rights and record
  rules, every time: the same report gives a salesperson their own figures
  and the manager everybody's. Nothing is computed with elevated rights
  except the nightly history and schedules, which run as the user you name
  on them.
- Variants are private to their owner unless shared; a shared variant is
  still changed and deleted by its owner alone.
- Computed columns accept arithmetic and six functions. They are parsed, not
  executed: there is no Python to inject.
- Multi-company: a report can belong to one company or to all; the numbers
  follow the companies the reader has switched on.

## Troubleshooting

****"... is computed on the fly and cannot be grouped"****

The field is not stored in the database, so the database cannot group by
it. Reach the same information through a stored link (for example
*Product ▸ Category* instead of a computed *Category* shortcut).

****"A measure must be a stored field of ..."****

Numbers are added up by the database and must be stored fields of the
model the report reads. Read the more detailed model (lines, not
documents), or one of Odoo's analysis models.

****"A distinct count cannot be combined with a grouping that follows a link"****

Remove the linked grouping, or replace the distinct count with a record
count.

****The table says it is cut****

The layout produces more than 20,000 combinations. Group by fewer fields,
a coarser date interval, or answer a question to narrow the records.

****A gallery report is missing****

Its app was installed after this one. *Reports ▸ list view ▸ Action ▸
Load the report gallery*. A report whose fields do not exist on your
Odoo series is skipped and named in the server log.

****The history is empty****

It is written at night. *Write Today's History* on the report form takes
the first entry now.

****No email arrives****

Check *Settings ▸ Technical ▸ Emails* for the queued message and your
outgoing mail server; check that the recipients have email addresses and
that the schedule's hour and weekday have come. The schedule's chatter
names any report that could not be computed.

## Limits, stated plainly

- A report reads **one model** and whatever it reaches through many2one
  links. It does not join two unrelated models.
- Numbers must be **stored fields of the model itself**. A computed,
  non-stored field cannot be summed by the database.
- Amounts are added as stored. For money across currencies, read the
  analysis models - *Sales Analysis*, *Invoices Statistics*, *Purchase
  Report* - as the gallery does: they hold company-currency amounts.
- A layout that produces more than 20,000 combinations is cut, and says so.
- Reports are not placed on Odoo's own spreadsheets. With BambooForge
  *Dashboard* installed (Odoo 17 and later), the small *Report Builder on
  Dashboards* module installs by itself and a dashboard tile or KPI can show
  a report's grand total.
- A share link shows what its creator can see; a link to a report of
  salaries is a link to salaries. Share what you would print.
- The chart draws the first row level only.

## Uninstalling

Uninstalling removes the reports, variants, schedules and histories this app
created. It touches nothing else: no field is added to any of your models.

## Changelog

### 20.0.1.1.0

- Built for Odoo 20: record rules and access rights rewritten onto Odoo 20's single ir.access model, the screens rebuilt on Owl 3, and every icon moved to the icon set Odoo 20 ships.

### 20.0.1.1.0

- Compare with the period before or the same period a year earlier, with
  the change in percent.
- Fixed conditions set by the designer and hidden from readers.
- `prev('x')` in computed columns: the value in the column before.
- Share links with an expiry date, computed with the sharer's access.
- A report's total as a dashboard tile (new companion module, 17+).

### 20.0.1.0.0

First release: nested cross-tab reports with links, computed columns,
highlights, questions, drill-down, variants, chart view, Excel and PDF,
schedules, the report gallery and daily history.

## How we make sure it works

Before every release, **32 automated checks** run against this app on Odoo 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20.
Among them:

- A reader cannot redesign the standard layout.
- Average is not an average of averages.
- The reader counts only what they may read.
- Schedule sends once per period.
- Expressions are arithmetic only.

The complete list is in the source you receive.