Customizing Filter Form

The filter form is a form that is used to filter the data to be used in the report.

The generated form

Behind the scene, The view calls slick_reporting.form_factory.report_form_factory in get_form_class method. report_form_factory is a helper method which generates a form containing start date and end date, as well as all foreign keys on the report_model.

Changing the generated form API is still private, however, you can use your own form easily.

Overriding the Form

The system expect that the form used with the ReportView to implement the slick_reporting.forms.BaseReportForm interface.

The interface is simple, only 3 mandatory methods to implement, The rest are mandatory only if you are working with a crosstab report or a time series report.

• get_filters: Mandatory, return a tuple (Q_filters , kwargs filter) to be used in filtering. q_filter: can be none or a series of Django’s Q queries kwargs_filter: None or a dictionary of filters

• get_start_date: Mandatory, return the start date of the report.

• get_end_date: Mandatory, return the end date of the report.

• get_crispy_helper : Optional, return a crispy form helper to be used in rendering the form.

In case you are working with a crosstab report, you need to implement the following methods:

• get_crosstab_compute_remainder: return a boolean indicating if the remainder should be computed or not.

• get_crosstab_ids: return a list of ids to be used in the crosstab report.

And in case you are working with a time series report, with a selector on, you need to implement the following method:

• get_time_series_pattern: return a string representing the time series pattern. ie: ie: daily, monthly, yearly

Example a full example of a custom form:

# forms.py
from slick_reporting.forms import BaseReportForm

# A Normal form , Inheriting from BaseReportForm
class RequestLogForm(BaseReportForm, forms.Form):

    SECURE_CHOICES = (
        ("all", "All"),
        ("secure", "Secure"),
        ("non-secure", "Not Secure"),
    )

    start_date = forms.DateField(
        required=False,
        label="Start Date",
        widget=forms.DateInput(attrs={"type": "date"}),
    )
    end_date = forms.DateField(
        required=False, label="End Date", widget=forms.DateInput(attrs={"type": "date"})
    )
    secure = forms.ChoiceField(
        choices=SECURE_CHOICES, required=False, label="Secure", initial="all"
    )
    method = forms.CharField(required=False, label="Method")
    response = forms.ChoiceField(
        choices=HTTP_STATUS_CODES,
        required=False,
        label="Response",
        initial="200",
    )
    other_people_only = forms.BooleanField(
        required=False, label="Show requests from other People Only"
    )

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(RequestLogForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        # provide initial values and ay needed customization
        self.fields["start_date"].initial = datetime.date.today()
        self.fields["end_date"].initial = datetime.date.today()

    def get_filters(self):
        # return the filters to be used in the report
        # Note: the use of Q filters and kwargs filters
        filters = {}
        q_filters = []
        if self.cleaned_data["secure"] == "secure":
            filters["is_secure"] = True
        elif self.cleaned_data["secure"] == "non-secure":
            filters["is_secure"] = False
        if self.cleaned_data["method"]:
            filters["method"] = self.cleaned_data["method"]
        if self.cleaned_data["response"]:
            filters["response"] = self.cleaned_data["response"]
        if self.cleaned_data["other_people_only"]:
            q_filters.append(~Q(user=self.request.user))

        return q_filters, filters

    def get_start_date(self):
        return self.cleaned_data["start_date"]

    def get_end_date(self):
        return self.cleaned_data["end_date"]

    # ----
    # in views.py

    from .forms import RequestLogForm

    class RequestCountByPath(ReportView):
        form_class = RequestLogForm

You can view this code snippet in action on the demo project https://django-slick-reporting.com/total-product-sales-with-custom-form/