The KoolReport Blog

Announcements, discussions, and more for KoolReport and its extended packages.

KoolReport Releases

We are thrilled to announce a major release of KoolReport products with significant improvements. Upgrade is highly recommended.

Compatibility with PHP 8.2

Dynamic properties have been deprecated in PHP 8.2 causing issues for KoolReport and its packages. We have completely solved the issues with dynamic properties in this release, enabling you to upgrade to the latest PHP confidently.

KoolReport Core 6.1.0

Improvements have been made to Table, Google Chart and the ability to store the view folder in a separate folder. The view file of a report no longer needs to be in the same folder as the report’s class file.

Dashboard Framework

Exporting capabilities have been greatly enhanced with the addition of a general engine() method. This method enables you to specify a list of exporting engines that you need and choose which engine to use during the exporting process. Excel exporting has also been improved, allowing developers to customize the view of the excel file instead of using the default view from the previous version.

Other packages

  1. Datagrid 7.8.0: Ability to load custom css file
  2. Excel 10.6.0: Excellent improvement for MacOS Number compatibility and ability to rearrange widgets automatically in Excel files
  3. Export 5.3.0: Improve the flexibility of export view by adding viewMap property.
  4. VisualQuery 2.1.0: Fix the grouping when multiple fields are used
  5. Amazing 2.1.4: Fix FormDropDown and DonutChart in Dashboard
  6. AppStack 1.1.5: Fix FormDropDown and DonutChart
  7. Bootstrap4 1.5.1: Upgrade to 4.5
  8. ChartJS 3.2.1: Minor fix
  9. ChartTable 1.3.1: Minor fix
  10. Cleandata 1.6.1 :Minor fix
  11. CloudExport 4.2.0: Upgrade php client library
  12. Cube 3.5.1: Minor fix
  13. Inputs 6.5.1: Minor fix
  14. MorrisChart 3.0.1: Minor fix

We hope that you enjoy the new releases.

<3 koolreport team

5 Reasons You Should Use KoolReport

Reporting section is always a part of any system, sometimes it plays a crucial part. We have learnt this through hundreds of projects we did for our customers. So what is KoolReport and why you should consider having it in your great php application.

php report

What is KoolReport?

By definition, KoolReport is an intuitive and flexible open-source PHP Reporting Framework for faster and easier data report delivery. Just like any php framework like Laravel or CodeIgniter, KoolReport provides developers a frame to code, a list of ready-made functionalities to build things. While other frameworks focus on constructing web applications, KoolReport only focuses on one thing: using PHP to construct great data reports.

Koolreport was born from the fact that data reports appear very often in almost all web applications. It is understandable because we always need to know the status of applications such as number of visitors, number of registered users or number of item sales and so on. We have built several hundred applications for our customers and 90% have report sections. In some of them, the report section is actually the main part. This is the biggest motivation for us to construct KoolReport in the first place.

There are 5 reasons that you would like to have KoolReport in your projects:

Easy

Easy to install and easy to use. You can install KoolReport by either downloading a copy and putting it inside your application or by using composer with a single command line. The structure of a report is very simple, one php class for report’s definition and one view file for report’s visualization. That’s why you can start using KoolReport in almost no-time.

Single purpose

KoolReport only does one thing and only one thing: building a good data report. Nothing more. You will not see routing, authentication or whatsoever. Is it bad? It depends on each opinion but for us, doing one thing best is better. “Make a good report” is not a simple task in fact. It includes 3 things.

First is the ability to connect to various sources and bring in data in one place. A report could be combined results from different data sources, a little from MySQL, some in Postgresql and other from CSV.

Second is the power of data processing. Data is gathered but how to fastly combine and transform them into meaningful information is the question. KoolReport contains over 30 built-in data processes which you can use with your data.

Last is data visualization capability. We have all meaningful data but without a good representation, the story could not be told. KoolReport is integrated with rich charts and graphs that come from well known libraries such as Google Chart, D3 or ChartJs for you to convey your data in the most impressive and interactive way.

Work with different environments

KoolReport can be integrated into Laravel or CodeIgniter or any MVC frameworks out and utilize their functionalities not existing in KoolReport. So KoolReport wants to be part of ecosystems, does one good thing and corporate with others, all heading to a final purpose: A great application.

Inherit experience of data report maker

Our deep experience of making data reports has been put into KoolReport. Moreover, the comments, recommendations and error report from users helps us to perfect KoolReport through many years. So using KoolReport, you are using a proven framework made by experts and growing from real use cases.

Free and open-source

Cost is always a part of the decision as always. KoolReport is released as a free and open-source library under MIT license which virtually gives you full right to use, to access and modify source-code as your own need.

So above are the top 5 reasons that you should use KoolReport inside your project. Of course, any solution has drawbacks and KoolReport will not be an exception. The reasons we give could be biased and the best way is your own experience with the framework.

Why's so hassle to create KPI dashboard?

It should be fun and easy to build. In KooPHP inc, we always keep in mind one thing "Developer must be happy!" because only when happy, he can build the whole world.

php dashboard open source

It sounds a bit exaggerated but it is true that if we want to build something bigger, we need to free our mind from hassle and focus strongly on main things.

Building a dashboard is not an exception. While what we should focus on is the content of dashboard such as "how data is available and organized?" "what chart types should be used to maximize user's understanding of data?", those tedious tasks like creating user login form, building menus, authorization, CSS styling keep eroding our energy. Sadly, those tedious tasks are essential and we can not escape from.

Understanding the pain, we built a solution called Dashboard Framework. The framework handles for you all those hassle tasks and let you concentrate on what really matter. Some of its features are:

  1. Built-in authentication
  2. Allow authorization from application to data field
  3. Work with MySQL, Postgres, SQL Server, SQLite
  4. Support data from CSV, Excel files
  5. Support Data Caching at widget level
  6. Support multi-languages
  7. Support Multi-themes
  8. Beautiful single page application
  9. Support lazy loading for widgets
  10. Flexible three levels organized menus
  11. Work with other frameworks like Laravel, CodeIgniter, Yii2, Symfony

Phew! That's a lot of listings but those are not all. So you see, when you own a framework like this, why hassle can bother you from building great dashboard system for yourself or for your clients. Saving tons of time & efforts, keeping you focus on the importance, making you more productive, helping to serve more clients and bringing you more income eventually. If you feel our words unbelievable, let see its beauty and simplicity from the links below.

To see how beautiful it is, view our demo!

To see how simple it is, view dashboard source-code on Github!

Dashboard Framework will be your shortcut into the world of modern data reporting. With all of its benefits, we hope to have chance to serve you as our customer.

GET IT NOW!

Looking forward to serving you.

<3 KoolReport Team

Coronavirus: How can we help?

This is an unprecedented time in our history. The COVID-19 pandemic is having an impact on the health of our loved ones, the businesses we rely upon, the health of the global economy, and the way we live our daily lives. Although small, we would like to contribute our effort to help.

We are here to help our customers

We stand ready to help you with safe, secure and affordable reporting solution. KoolReport framework is continued to improve with new features and bug fixes to ensure your report application relied on us continue to run well. We are working hard to fulfill our support responsibility to our customers and all KoolReport's users. We continue to get outsourcing projects done even our customers may be late on payments. We truly understand "a friend in need is a friend indeed".

Discount our licenses

In this flat world today, every businesses is connected to each others. Crisis somewhere else reach us in the way I could not think of. Job loss, project halted, late payment, all can happen putting financial burden in our shoulder. That's why we discount 40% for all KoolReport Pro licenses during this hard time. We understand and would like to share the burden with you.

Take care of our employees, who serve you

Supporting our employees during this crisis period is critical to providing you the service you need and expect. We have taken actions as Covid-19 spreads to protect the physical health and financial security while supporting our customers. Our employees are allowed to work remotely. We provided them with tools to work effectively from home. During their transition from workplace to home, you may see some impact of wait time for our support answer. We greatly appreciate your patience and understanding as we work through this together.

Thank you

We would like to say thanks to all for your trust you put in us everyday. We believe that the crisis will be gone soon and we together be back stronger than ever.

<3 koolreport team

KoolReport 4.5.1 has been released!

We are happy to announce that we have released KoolReport core version 4.5.1 with new features. The KoolReport Pro also reaches same version number 4.5.1 with the new core update and the upgrade of individual packages such as Excel, Inputs, D3, ChartJs.

KoolReport's class

KoolReport's class is provided with new getXml() method to get the representation of your report in xml format. The xml contains both data and meta data of all report's datastores.

DataStore

In this version, we continue to enrich methods of datastore. DataStore has a new method called distinct(). As the name suggested, distinct method will have you to get a list of unrepeated values from a column. Furthermore, Datastore is provided with new toArray() and toJson() methods to get array and JSON. This could be useful if you need result in array form for further processing or JSON format to be returned in your REST API.

New DataSource

We have added new DataSource called ExistedPdoDataSource to handle source in case you only have the PDO object but connection settings. So you only need to send your existed PDO object as parameter to your report and provide it with ExistedPdoDataSource in settings() method.

JsonSpread process

JsonSpread is a new processed added to KoolReport in order to spread JSON data into column in data stream. By doing so, we are able to apply other KoolReport's processes to further process the JSON data.

Support CI/CD process

Since the popularity of CI/CD process, KoolReport library now fully support this new type of software integration and delivery processes. We understand the 1 hour token availability causes trouble for the automation delivery so we have increases the life time of token to maximum. In particular, the token will last until your subscription of KoolReport Pro is ended. If you have purchase the Perpetual Usage, the token expiration will be set the 2100-01-01 which is virtually life-time or never expired.

Support load balancing

If you are using load balancing with multiple servers containing app (with KoolReport integrated), the generated resource folders now have same name in all servers. So virtually, the client-side will be able to receive resource files regardless of servers it connects to.

D3Chart Client Events

The D3 chart has been upgraded with one of the most crucial features: client events. This is the missing part in D3 first version. Now all charts support itemSelect event which help you to track the click of user to item on the charts. Now D3 is able to work with DrillDown package to provide interactive drill down report.

DrillDown supports D3

Missing client events hindered the collaboration of DrillDown package with D3 chart. But not anymore, since the D3 package has supported the client events, the DrillDown package also support generate D3 Chart. By specifying the D3 chart as drilldown widgets, the DrillDown will bind itself to D3 itemSelect to provide interactive report.

Excel Package

We have fixed the PieChart display in Microsoft Excel and a minor bugs happened when data is missing.

ChartJS Package

We have upgraded the core of ChartJS to latest version of 2.9.x. With this new upgrade, some of known issues has been addressed. Furthermore, we have provided new plugins property which allows you to use most popular plugins for ChartJS like datalabels, annotation, stacked100 and others.

Inputs Package

Due to the upgrade of FontAwesome library in previous KoolReport's version, some of the icons have not been displayed correctly. This issue has been addressed in this new version of Inputs package.

New Yii2 Package

In this release, we roll out new package koolreport\yii2. As the name suggested, yii2 package will facilitate the integration of KoolReport with Yii2, one of the most used frameworks in PHP. Similar to other integration packages that we have created before like laravel or codeigniter, the yii2 package will help to auto configure report's assets settings and allow report to access to default database connection setup within Yii2.

Summary

The version 4.5.x added new features and empowered reporting capability to KoolReport. This upgrade is backward compatible with old 4.x versions so feel free to upgrade. If you need have any question about this new release, do not hesitate to let us know.

Thank you!

<3 koolreport team


KoolReport helps to analyze your data and ultimately turn them into visual reports or dynamic dashboards.

"KoolReport helps me very much in creating data report for my corporate! Keep up your good work!"

Alain Melsens

"The first use of your product. I was impressed by its easiness and powerfulness. This product is a great product and amazing."

Dr. Lew Choy Onn

"Fantastic framework for reporting!"

Greg Schneider
Get KoolReport Now, It's FREE!