As many of you may know, KReport was once a part of older versions of SuiteCRM but has since been removed. Iām reaching out to discuss the potential of reviving and enhancing KReport as an add-on plugin for SuiteCRM 7.x and 8.x versions.
The goal is to build an advanced, feature-rich KReport plugin that integrates seamlessly into SuiteCRM, offering users powerful reporting capabilities. Our vision includes:
Enhanced reporting features: Improving the overall user interface and experience for generating and customizing reports.
Advanced Charts & Maps: Integrating interactive and visually appealing charts and maps, powered by Google APIs for better data visualization.
Backend improvements: Strengthening the integration of data sources, report generation, and the handling of large datasets.
We are looking for collaborators to help develop this add-on, enhance its features, and ensure it is fully compatible with both SuiteCRM 7.x and 8.x versions. If you have experience with SuiteCRM, reporting tools, or working with Google APIs for charts and maps, your contributions will be invaluable.
Would anyone be interested in collaborating on this exciting project and contributing to the development of the KReport add-on for SuiteCRM? I look forward to hearing from you!
KReport was great. I still run Version 3.x in my Suite 7.14.x with minimal compatibility changes. I could give you theses small changes, but they are really not that big.
Yes. I am running PHP8.2. Are you on github? I could invite you to my private Repo. Do not want to make it public because of course I do not want to distribute KReports.
can you share some screenshots of the best parts of Kreport?
Other folks here suggest that Google Charts can be a better route to reporting - but I personally have not tried that.
My company did use Kreports on Suite - maybe 5 years back, but I canāt remember how useful the reports were.
The Google Chart option under the āVisualizeā section in Kreport is a great feature, allowing you to create various chart types such as Area, Stepped Area, Bar, Column, Line, and Pie. However, there are additional chart types that it could support, like the Sankey chart, which still need to be implemented.
For the Google Maps option, you need to select the longitude and latitude fields. Additionally, there are options for pin info, as well as color settings for markers and clusters on the map. These features still need to be implemented.
The Kreport developer has added many of these features, but they have integrated them into their own CRM, SpiceCRM, which includes the Kreport tool. You can find more details by watching the following videos:
If KReports is troublesome to use because it is not being actively maintained, wouldnāt it be better to use some generic reporting tool that allows SQL database access?
Something as simple as Excel, or as evolved as you need. If it can connect to our database and consume the data (itās all there to use, thatās why weāre not going for hosted cloud-based CRMās, right?)ā¦
@pgr I totally agree with you.
Plugins are easy to install, but a lot of work to maintain.
Since access to the DB is basically one of SuiteCRM āSuperPowerā, we should make full use of it.
I usually use Metabase, Redash or a custom DWH / CDP.
Thank you for it. I have question. How can I run from/host on ubuntu 22.04? I want to host it on the server and then all users can access it within local network. Is it possible?
Basically possible as well - itās just a jar file that youād run on the server and people would login then.
Iāve done it several times and itās working just fine.
One āissueā I see here, is the PostgreSQL - if you want to run it beside Suite youāll have Maria / MySQL + Postgre on one sever.
Technically possible but not best practice.
If you prefer a dockerized setup, Redash might work better.
Though the query builder in Metabase is amazingly easy.
Redash expects you to write SQL - I guess AI and RAG tools are the next thing to try into this direction.
Thank you. Yes, I saw it that it is JAR file which run using JAVA JDK. But, I want to host it on server like SuiteCRM and users can access it using URL of metabse.
I donāt remember a single time in my personal server history, where I could have answered this question with a yes.
Java runs without any issues on a Lin server as well, if you wanted it to.
Iāve been running Metabase on a VPS as well.
What bothers me is the addition in the tech stack. Unfortunately, there is nothing very usuful in the realm of PHP.
All charting is usually JS / Java / Python.
Iāve done much development with D3, which is amazing - but yet another something and custom code.
Clicking dashboards together like in Metabase is so easy, I havenāt found anything easier so far, in terms of open source.
I asked that question some time ago when we ceased the project and ported it to our SugarCEM CE Fork and our angular framework. Back then nobody volunteered to continue with it.
If interested I can still dig and see if I find the old ExtJS Sources so it can be built again. But also ExtJS is significant redone and in that version I fear not even any longer available.
Currently, in the latest SuiteCRM 7.12 version, our KReporter implementation is working flawlessly. We are now adapting it to SuiteCRM 7.14.6 and PHP 8.4, and it should be ready in approximately two weeks.
We are also using a Data Analytics tool that integrates seamlessly with SinergiaCRM, providing direct access to custom fields and modules. This is achieved through a database layer of views. However, at the moment, it is highly tailored to SinergiaCRM.
Hi @pgr of course you can do data analysis directly on an SQL-Database, it howerver requires that user knows how the database tables are organized, and also how different modules with intermediate tables are interconnected.
The advantange of KReports is, that it recognizes the datastructures based on the vardef-definitions of SuiteCRM, so a user doesnāt need to know about the underlying database tables.
I assume, pgr meant a reporting tool, in the sense of it connects to the DB, but abstracts the task of creating reports by providing a nice UI.
Just like the standard reports do to some extend and what kreporter did as well.
I assume, kreporter is/was too focused on SuiteCRM / SpiceCRM and similar, whereas the business problem to solve here, was a very generic one:
āBuilding reports from a relational DBā.
Unfortunately, it seems like, that there is not a single big / common / widely adapted PHP reporting tool on the market.
Most available ones are JS / Java / etc. - maybe for reporting the āajax / MERN experienceā without page-reloads etc. really makes sense to become a user friendly experience.
I really notice the huge difference between building reports in Suite / Sugar and something like Metabase - the UI / UX is just very far apart. (despite the somewhat limiting features of the PHP solutions to reporting).
There are a couple of JS libraries which are interesting like D3 / C3 / Charts.js - but one would still need to develop a āSuiteCRM reporting toolā on top of a library like this, to make this a reporting plugin.
Since you usually want to have reporting across business processes, you donāt want to focus too much on the CRM anyway, but rather have a holistic approach to data reporting via data lakes / data warehouses or at least a BI which can connect to multiple data sources and build data models across departments (marketing, sales, customer service, production, logistics, transactions etc.)
