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Allow users to export or copy data

Owned by Helen Gosper
Last updated: Aug 20, 2023 by Denise McGettigan

Users need to have permission to be able to export data (this includes Export > to email, PDF, xlsx, etc, copying data from the grid and downloading charts from the grid or from dashboards). Often a user's profile has some export permissions built in. You can add or remove permissions via profile settings, either for an individual user or in a standard profile applied to multiple users.

  • Administration > Profiles, or
  • Administration > Users and select a specific user. Make changes from the 'Profile tab' on the user maintenance screen.

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In both cases, go to the 'Export' section of the screen and check the relevant export options. The option named 'Clipboard' allows a user to copy data directly from the grid to paste into another application, e.g., Excel. Even though it is a simple 'copy/paste' function for the user, it is handled by Phocas as an export. 

Note there some limits on the size of the dataset that a user can export.

Permission to change profile settings

You need to have the following admin permission be able to change these settings: 'Profiles', in order to access Admin > Profiles and 'Users: Profiles', to be able to access the 'Profile tab' on the user maintenance screen. 

If an administrator has the setting ‘Profiles’ but not ‘Users: Profiles’, they can access Administration > Profiles to make changes to generic profiles but not access the profiles tab on the user maintenance screen to change an individual user’s profile settings.

Email settings

For users to be able to export to email, your site needs to have email settings configured. This is usually carried out by administrators with special permissions. See Configure SMTP settings to send emails.