bi_view_editor

BI View Editor

BI View Editor is a tool integrated in Odoo that allows users define and execute their own reports without the need to code.

Purpose:

• The BI View Editor is used to create reports not already contained in the standard Odoo, combining data from existing sources.
• It has been designed to be used by users with little or no knowledge of the technical architecture of Odoo. Users visually link business objects and select the fields to visualize.
• The BI View Editor offers users different types of representations, including tree, graph, pivot views.

Table of contents

• Installation
• Usage
• Known issues / Roadmap
• Bug Tracker
• Credits
  • Authors
  • Contributors
  • Other credits
    • Funders
  • Maintainers

Installation

In the Odoo configuration file add bi_view_editor in the list server_wide_modules:

[options]
(...)
server_wide_modules = web,bi_view_editor
(...)

Alternatively specify --load=bi_view_editor when starting Odoo by command line.

Optionally it is possible to enable the view of the ER Diagram. For this you need to install Graphviz, an open source graph visualization software:

``sudo apt-get install graphviz``

Usage

To graphically design your analysis data-set:

• From the Dashboards menu, select "Custom BI Views"
• BI Views creation is restricted to members of "BI View Editor Manager" group. You can add this group to a user in User form, Access Rights, Technical section.
• Browse trough the business objects in the "Query Builder" tab
• Pick the interesting fields (Drag & Drop)
• For each selected field, right-click on the Options column and select whether it's a row, column or measure; if you want to remove the field from the list view, unflag the checkbox ´List´ in the Options column
• Save and click "Generate BI View"
• Click "Open BI View" to view the result

To access the created BI View with a dedicated menu:

• If module Dashboard (board) is installed, the standard "Add to My Dashboard" functionality would be available
• "Create a menu" is restricted to members of "BI View Editor Manager" group.
• Click "Create a menu" to create a new menu item directly linked to your new BI view (this feature is available in developer mode); when the BI view is reset back to draft this menu will be removed, and you will need to re-create the menu entry.

A more advanced UI is also available under the "Details" tab. It provides extra possibilities for more advanced users, like to use LEFT JOIN instead of the default INNER JOIN.

It also possible to improve the IDs generation for new views by adding an Over Condition in the "SQL" tab, see https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-expressions.html#SYNTAX-WINDOW-FUNCTIONS for further details. For instance, an ORDER BY clause helps preventing unreliable behavior when filtering the generated views.

Known issues / Roadmap

• Non-stored fields and many2many fields are not supported.
• Provide a tutorial (eg. a working example of usage).
• Find better ways to extend the _auto_init() without override.
• Possibly avoid the monkey patches.
• Data the user has no access to (e.g. in a multi company situation) can be viewed by making a view. Would be nice if models available to select when creating a view are limited to the ones that have intersecting groups.
• As of Odoo 16, translations of the name of a BI View and of the field descriptions do not work as expected: the translated strings are selected (by the user's language) when the view is generated (and stored as their en_US value) instead of when it is displayed.

Bug Tracker

Bugs are tracked on GitHub Issues. In case of trouble, please check there if your issue has already been reported. If you spotted it first, help us to smash it by providing a detailed and welcomed feedback.

Do not contact contributors directly about support or help with technical issues.

Credits

Authors

• Onestein

Contributors

• Simon Janssens <s.janssens@onestein.nl>
• Diego Luis Neto <diegoluis.neto@gmail.com>
• Dennis Sluijk <d.sluijk@onestein.nl>
• Kevin Graveman <k.graveman@onestein.nl>
• Richard Dijkstra <r.dijkstra@onestein.nl>
• Andrea Stirpe <a.stirpe@onestein.nl>
• Antonio Esposito <a.esposito@onestein.nl>
• Jordi Ballester Alomar <jordi.ballester@eficent.com>
• Italo LOPES <italo.lopes@camptocamp.com>
• Coop IT Easy SC:
  • hugues de keyzer

Other credits

Funders

The development of this module for Odoo 11.0 has been financially supported by:

• IDEAL Connaissances SAS https://www.idealconnaissances.com

Maintainers

This module is maintained by the OCA.

OCA, or the Odoo Community Association, is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support the collaborative development of Odoo features and promote its widespread use.

This module is part of the OCA/reporting-engine project on GitHub.

You are welcome to contribute. To learn how please visit https://odoo-community.org/page/Contribute.