PDF Reports Best Practices

The PDF export functionality enables you to generate and save reports, dashboards, or visualizations in PDF format for easy sharing and offline viewing. With PDF exports, you can capture the current state of your data analysis and present it in a static format that can be easily distributed and printed.

Exporting Options

  • By default, when you export a dashboard to PDF, only the first page of each pivot widget is exported. When you export a pivot widget to PDF, multiple pivot pages are exported.

  • Pivot and table widgets are not scaled to fit the page when exporting to PDF. Since pivot and table widgets can have many columns, scaling is not appropriate in many cases. Designers can configure and save the PDF properties, such as format and orientation, providing the best fit for your particular dashboards.

    Another good solution is to use the Expand Pivot on PDF Sisense add-on. It scales pivot widgets automatically to fit the page width in the report. However, note that it can cause performance issues for pivots with large numbers of rows.

Emailing Options

  • Sisense can only email the entire dashboard. Emailing individual widgets is not possible. By default, the dashboard with the first page of each pivot widget is emailed.

  • The Expand Pivot on PDF add-on enables you to export all of the pivot rows to PDF when you export the dashboard to PDF. With this add-on, you can email the entire dashboard with multiple pivot pages.

Limitations

Exporting pivots is a process/memory consuming operation. If the pivot is very complex, the export may fail.

Pivot complexity depends on many factors:

  • Count of rows/columns

  • Styles

  • Content

  • Formulas

  • Add-ons

  • Totals/Sub-totals

  • Scripts

  • Data security rules

Combinations of the above factors create restrictions under which the maximum number of lines which can be exported varies. One pivot can be exported with 10k rows, while another can only have 1k rows.

It is a known issue that the Headless Chrome (a browser used during the PDF generation process) can fail to print a very large PDF. Increasing CPU/Memory resources may not help, as there is no linear dependency between the number of rows and resources needed for successful export.

Dashboard Optimization Recommendations

  1. Optimize Dashboard Design: Complex dashboards with numerous widgets and large pivots can strain your resources during the PDF export process. Consider optimizing your dashboard design by reducing the number of widgets, simplifying layouts, and minimizing the size of pivot tables when possible. Test the PDF export after you change the dashboard design to identify any limitations.

  2. Manage Data Volume: Large datasets can impact the performance of PDF exports. If your dashboard includes pivots with a significant number of rows or columns, consider applying filters or aggregations to reduce the amount of data being exported.

  3. Optimize Widgets: Pivots may require more processing power or memory during PDF exports. Identify if specific widgets are consistently causing the "Printing failed" error, and consider simplifying or optimizing those widgets.

  4. Memory and Timeout Settings: Adjusting memory limits and timeouts can alleviate the issue. Depending on your deployment environment and server configuration, you may need to adjust these parameters.

  5. Upgrade Dependencies: Ensure that you are using the latest version of Sisense. Newer versions may include bug fixes, performance improvements, or optimizations that address known issues.

  6. If you have exhausted the other options and are still encountering issues with PDF exports, try to export the pivot to a CSV/XLSX instead.