We use Bubble basically as our CRM, so it has accounts, related to many opportunities, and so on. The challenge we have right now is that any time we want to report on anything we basically have to reinvent the wheel and build an interface and layout for it and so on. When using Salesforce, or Dynamics or really any CRM, you can just go to the Reports tab and easily build a report showing data from multiple related objects, such as showing all closed won opportunities, but also including the company address which is from the related accounts table and so on.
Other than just building this all in Bubble, are there any external ways to do this? Iād get a developer to do it for me most likely but I just donāt know what Iām asking for. Iād love some sort of utility or site where I can build reports in it, and then it pulls the data from Bubble. For example, being able to say generate a report using these 5 fields from this object, these 3 fields from this related one, and these 6 fields from this other related one, filtered to only show ones that are closed won, and so on. And then have it just export to CSV or generate the report for me to view.
Part of the reason I donāt think I can do this in Bubble is because we need relative dates which I was told Bubble doesnāt do. So meaning Iād want to view closed won opportunities, but where the close date is āTHIS MONTHā or āLAST MONTHā or āTHIS QUARTERā things like that, vs always having to specifically set the start and end date. I posted here before and was told you canāt do that, so that doesnāt really work for us. Managers need to be able to click a report like āWins this monthā and just have it show the data as they donāt have time to manually select the start and end date etc.
Can the Bubble database be accessed externally via SQL or how do people do reporting being that bubble built in reporting is so basic?
No worries thanks Iāll check it out as it still looks cool. Just looking at it quick, is this something that would work by setting up the API in this tool with Bubbleās API details? So this tool pulls data from Bubble? Or is Bubble pushing data to this?
Yep, utilizing the API to send data to the PDF Generator to retrieve data from an app to fill a PDF template, but they only use GET calls for endpoints you give them.
Honestly I donāt have a TON of experience with it, as I normally just build the report and use the āBubble Page to PDFā plugin by Zeroqode to generate reports. On another note, there is a SQL connector in bubble, but not sure if it would be of use for your use-case.
In closing, Iām not the report guruā¦ but perhaps someone else will chime in with a better suggestion for your use-case.
If you are interested in 3rd party software you have options like Zoho Analytics or Google Data Studio. Links to both of them here:
Both of those can connect to google sheets and google sheets is easy to connect a Bubble app to. Iām sure you could build in a direct connection as well.
And there is a host of other reporting services out there. Some of them are REALLY pricey though.
Reporting is one of the more difficult things in Bubble simply for the fact that everything has to be built from absolute scratch. There are no magical elements that produce charts and filters like most of the software we use.
However, it can be done.
I donāt know who told you this but it absolutely can be done. Not magically for sure but it can be done.
For instance, a āTHIS MONTHā filter can be done with a search parameter like this:
Close Date > Current date/time:change date to 1 change hours to 0 change minutes to 0 change seconds to 0
That will return anything with a closing date after 12:00:00 am on the 1st day of the current month.
Creating filters for āLAST MONTHā or āTHIS QUARTERā will take a little more effort but fairly simply done if thatās what you need.
Great thanks thatās helpful! Ironically this all started by wanting to use Zoho Analytics but our developers could never get it to work due to the type of API being used or something. Right now I use Zapier and Google Sheets with Google Data Studio. It does work, but it just started giving me issues where out of the blue if I add a date field to a sheet from Bubble, it adds it now as a long 143498234 type number and not a date. It just started doing that randomly last week. So thatās why I was thinking if I could use Bubble to do all reporting itās better, but itās just so clunky since Iām creating something that already exists with other 3rd party options. Iām also realizing now that itās in Data Studio that I donāt think thereās as many types of charts or reports needed that I originally thought, which might make it easier just to bite the bullet and build it in Bubble lol.
For sure! Do you know if with Bubble itās possible to integrate with Google Sheets in some capacity, like if I create a record in Bubble it creates it as a Sheet row, and if I edit that record it updates that Sheet row? I do that today using Zapier and it generally works but I just feel like itās not super scalable. Right now I have 3 sales people, so creating and editing records we are in the 1800 tasks per month range right now which isnāt bad, but if we grow and need to do more than the 3000 tasks on our current Zapier plan I could see the cost going up.
It would be amazing if it was possible to just skip Zapier somehow and create and update Sheet rows directly from Bubble, just not sure what that would be called or what Iād be looking for in terms of finding a developer that is able to help with that.
You can connect directly to sheets through the API.
Check out Integromat, though. Itās a little more complicated than Zapier but more robust and substantially cheaper. It also integrates very well with Bubble.
Integromatās complication is the same thing you run into with Bubble. You have to build out from scratch what Zapier often offers as prebuilt module.
For example, Zapier has a single step that will add OR update a row in Sheets.
With Integromat, you will have to route the workflow into two separate actions (Add and Update) and then put filters in front of each action.
The benefit of this, though, is that you have granular control over your workflows.
While a bit more work, once set up it works very well and did I mention CHEAPER?
This looks cool! Iāll definitely check it out. To be honest with Zapier I have them all as 2 zaps anyway as I realized after that you could do them all as one, so shouldnāt be a huge issue at all here. And yes definitely cheaper and much better! I wonder if it pushes data to Google Sheets instantly the way Zapier does, as thatās always cool. Zapier says 5 minutes or 15 minutes or something but I guess due to the way Bubble works it actually happens instantly.
Seems like interesting insights here but still scratching my head as i am not familiar with Zapier, data studio, etc. I am still struggling to implement a reporting system on my App. My App lists tasks which are set to be completed by different stakeholders within a set deadline. The tasks feed into achieving specific objectives and the objectives feed into achieving specific goals. I want to implement a reporting system that reports the tasks implemented this month, last month, last quarter, etc. and that shows the shift to the objectives and goals. The shift in objectives and goals can be demonstrated in graphs, charts, matrix, etc.
Any idea on how this can be accomplished? I may resort to contracting a freelancer if it is too complex for meā¦Any suggestions will be appreciated.
We ran into the same limitations you did in Bubble with reporting and built a reporting tool around the Tabulator plugin. It allows our users to create custom reports, add/hide/reorder columns, apply filters (including things like you mentioned ), some conditional formatting, export to CSV, etc.
BUT we still canāt reference data from other data types like you mentioned wanting to do. (we ended up just adding those fields in our main data type so we could report on those values).
I think if Bubble, or a developer with a plugin, could solve this issue of reporting within a bubble app, it would be huge! Iāve reached out to some developers and none of them want to touch it, or donāt even know where they would start. Definitely a big gap.
