Reports in an Excel format

In the previous recipe, we saw how to write a simple report. We will now see how to modify the report plugin to include Excel reports.

Getting ready

Create the report plugin, as mentioned in the previous recipe.

How to do it...

The following are the steps to include the provision of exporting the report to Excel:

1. Add the velocity resource type for the Excel view in the plugin descriptor if not added already:

   <resource type="velocity" name="excel" location="templates/allissues/allissues-report-excel.vm" />

2. Override the isExcelViewSupported method in the report class to return true. In our case, we add this in AllIssuesReport.java:

   @Override
   public boolean isExcelViewSupported() {
     return true;
   }

   Note

   This method returns false by default, as it is implemented that way in the AbstractReport class.

3. Override the generateReportExcel method returning the Excel view. This is very similar to the generateReportHtml method we implemented in the previous recipe. The only difference...