How to generate your own reports in Magento

Coolest thing in Magento’s is generating your own reports.
The quickest way to create Magento’s reports is to generate them through the grids.

First you will need to create collection of data which you want to display and save.
Then you have to add those fields in your grid, the rest is piece of cake.

In your custom grid class you need to call method “addExportType” from “Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Widget_Grid” class
(your custom grid class needs to extend Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Widget_Grid class).
Code of protected function _prepareColumns() in your Grid class:

$this->addExportType('*/*/exportCsv', 
         Mage::helper('your_helper')->__('CSV'));
 
return parent::_prepareColumns();

– this code generates export button in your grid and calls “exportCsvAction” in controller of your module, put it anywhere above “return parent::_prepareColumns();”

Your button will appear in grid:

Now, all you need to do is create method in called “exportCsvAction” in your controller class.
Code looks like this:

	public function exportCsvAction() {
		$fileName = 'your_custom_file.csv';
 
		$content = $this->getLayout ()
			->createBlock('your_custom_csv_grid')
			->getCsvFile();
 
		$this->_prepareDownloadResponse($fileName, $content);
 
	}

Note: You can study “Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Widget_Grid” class and find out that there are also methods for generating Excel files.

Enjoy coding.