Excel download problems

[Gary Meehan]

Hi Andriy, We're having 2 problems with the Excel download feature. We can duplicate this with 'Timesheet' or 'Pivot by User' reports. Using Chrome or Safari on a MacBook Pro running OS X Yosemite 10.10.3. (We download 75% of our reports so we can do further analysis and reporting -- this feature is vital.)

1. The files always download as a text file and can’t be opened, read or imported by Excel. In fact they can't be opened at all with standard software that ships on the Mac. It works FINE on a Windows 10 PC, but we only have Macs at work where we need to use the software.
2. On the excel files I did download on my home PC, some of the time in ‘Timespent’ column downloaded as text, not numbers, so running calculations on them didn’t yield accurate figures. I have uploaded a sample file with highlighting of the problem record's 'Timespent' field. I cannot find anything about these records that should cause this to happen.

Thanks, Gary

[Andriy Zhdanov]

Hi Gary,

Attached TimeReport PivotByUser Dwnld Test on PC for Jan1-7.xlsx does not look like one downloaded via Time Reports add-on for JIRA Cloud. It is valid xlsx file in zip format, however Time Reports produce text file containing html table data, that can be opened in any text editor, and Excel usually.

Thank you.

[Gary Meehan]

Hi Andriy. I guarantee you that file was downloaded via Time Reports Add-on for JIRA Cloud. Some of the ways it looks different than the old "Time Sheet Report" is the old one as a default just had 'Date' column, but the new one now gives two date columns..."Created" and "Started"; also the time column which used to be called "Time Spent (h)" is now called "Timespent". The extra calculations to the right of the Timespent column were of course added by me afterwards.

I have figured out how to solve the #1 issue above...it downloads on Mac OS X 10.10 with NO file extension...so I add ".xls" behind it and it can be read by Excel. (Not required on my Windows 10 PC...it automatically downloads with .xls extension although when saving it defaults to .htm.) I don't understand why though--given the 'X' icon you use, it's not an excel format.

However #2 problem still persists.

And working more with Time Reports for JIRA Cloud has yielded more issues.

#3: Multiple Time-out error messages on my 2 yr old MacBook Pro w/16Gb RAM when trying to run a report from Jan 1-31 2016 which is filtered by a specific project that has 1154 records. Runs OK on a PC, although slow -- it takes ~ 20 seconds to produce results (Time Sheet Report can do it in 3 sec.)

#4: The report on the PC displays correctly --- filtered for the single project -- however the downloaded file of it contains ALL Projects! I think it should just contain the single project.

[Andriy Zhdanov]

Hi Gary,

I see, attached file is after you processed downloaded one. So could you please probably attach downloaded file before your processing?

Note, it used to be the same in TSR that text file with xls extension is downloaded and automatically converted by Excel software. However with new add-on it's a bit more tricky, because content is generated client side, so it depends on browser also how file is downloaded, with or without .xls extension, or different name. For me it also downloads with .xls extension on Mac OS X 10, Chrome

Timeout may also highly depend on browser, it may be even possibly to configure it. However I agree that it's add-on problem that it's so slow, but this is actually JIRA rest that makes it slow. It may eventually become better with Atlassian help hopefully.

And filtering by project, I think has been fixed 4 days ago. Could you please clarify it is still not? I've just tried again, and seems to filter excel export properly.

Thank you.

[Andriy Zhdanov]

Regarding filtering by project. The fix was not applied last time, but now it should be there.

[Andriy Zhdanov]

Let me mark it as resolved, though the problem with filtering worklogs by project does not seem to be fixed, but there is separate issue#756 for this.

[Gary Meehan]

Hi Andriy, Sorry for the lack of response from me, I was on vacation last week. I don't think I need to re-send you another sample file. I have re-run the report I was using when I logged this ticket. - #2 problem (some numbers downloading as text, not numeric) did not re-occur. So I would agree, based on this single test, that issue is fixed. - #4 problem (which is also covered in issue #756) did not occur this time either....only the single project I specified appeared in the download. And I didn't need to first refresh the page.

And regarding my other two #'d issues ... #1 - not being recognized by software applications ... the solution for me is to manually add ".xls" to the file before opening it. (other colleagues at my work have the same problem.) #3 - Time outs .... this doesn't seem to occur, at least not when I start in a new browser window.

Thanks for working on these issues. I believe this add-on still needs improving, but it looks like I can probably manage with it for now I think.

Gary

[Andriy Zhdanov]

Hi Gary,

Thank you for checking. And yes, it still needs a lot of improvements, and hopefully it will get to a proper shape soon.

[Gary Meehan]

Hi Andriy, In your reply to me about this problem (yesterday re issue 789), you said "Regarding downloading problems, it appears not all browsers support it properly, may be you just need to update your Chrome."

My Chrome did indeed need some recent updating, but it didn't help. Problem still persists. When I try to download the file using Chrome, it goes to this webpage: chrome-extension://gbkeegbaiigmenfmjfclcdgdpimamgkj/views/app.html with the error message…Whoops, it looks like we can’t open this type of document….etc. (see screenshot attached) and my Mac puts the whole file contents into the filename field.

We are a web applications development company, and one of our senior developers has mentioned "This doesn't download with xls extension, Mac OSX with Chrome for me either - it just downloads with the name "download" with no extension." and suggested this for finding a solution: "I see a couple posts that maybe they could read and see if they can incorporate - adding a "download" attribute to their link with the filename: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6955860/filename-of-downloaded-file-in-dataapplication-octet-stream http://stackoverflow.com/questions/283956/is-there-any-way-to-specify-a-suggested-filename-when-using-data-uri

As far as I can see, the url it generates that pops open the save dialog for me (see attached screenshot) does specify a filename ("exportData.xls") but Chrome does not appear to be reading that property."

[Andriy Zhdanov]

Hi Gary,

It looks like your chrome extension is causing the problem. Sorry I have not found anything that I can do to workaround it. May be you can come up with an idea again?

Thank you for the information, I've applied a change to use downloadable link if possible, and fallback to previous approach if not. Also tried to add support for IE (asked in issue#773).

Please let me know if it is better now.

Thank you.

[John Fisher]

Hey Adriy

Looks like IE11 is now working. When you click on the Excel link you get an excel file automatically starting to download.

Thanks John

[Gary Meehan]

Hi Andriy, it wasn't working late yesterday afternoon, but the problem in Chrome is fixed now. (maybe your updates were deployed overnight?). Now I get a download file named "exportData.xls". Yay! Thanks!

[Andriy Zhdanov]

Hi Gary,

Well, may be change did not come through yesterday (like cache issue), glad it works now, thank you for your valuable help!

[Gary Meehan]

By the way, just in case you’re wondering, I deleted the sample reports from this issue and also #789, I hadn’t realized they would be publicly available.

Gary Meehan [e-mail]

[Andriy Zhdanov]

Ok, good you've realised it not too late.