Guide to Customizing Existing Reports in Odoo18

Odoo18 comes with a strong reporting system that lets you easily create reports based on your needs. However, sometimes the default reports may not cover all your specific requirements, and you may need to make some changes. In this blog, we will show you how to modify the existing reports in Odoo18 to create ones that better match your business needs.

How to Customize Pre Existing Reports in Odoo18

Odoo Reports

Typically, Odoo reports are developed using the QWeb template engine in conjunction with the Odoo framework and Python. Reports are very useful in dissecting data in different modules and cabinets. Importantly, before one goes ahead to customize the systems, it is essential to understand the components of these systems which ill be explained in the subsequent paragraphs

• Models Provides the business logic and data structure
• Views Allows you to present the data to the users in a certain format.
• QWeb Templates Even embellishes the structure of the reports

How to Customize the Templates in Odoo18

To customize a report in Odoo18, one first has to search for that report in Odoo. The Odoo settings Technical Menu contains all the report templates with their source codes and reports. This part gives templates’ names and relevant template code.

Inheriting and Customizing Reports

To customize a report, you must inherit it within your custom module Here’s how you can do this

• Create a new XML file in your module’s views directory
• Use the <template> tag to inherit the Odoo18 existing report template and apply your changes

For instance, if you want to add a customer code field in the res.partner model, you would do it like this

class ResPartner(models.Model):

"""Extending res.partner to add customer code for all partners"""

       _inherit = 'res.partner'

customer_code = fields.Char(string='Customer ID', help='Unique identification number for partners')

Next, to include this field in all invoice PDF reports, inherit the invoice template:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<odoo>

<!-- Inheriting the invoice PDF template to add customer code -->

<template id="report_invoice_document" inherit_id="account.report_invoice_document">

<xpath expr="//div[@name='address_same_as_shipping']//t[@t-set='address']" position="inside">

<div t-if="o.partner_id.customer_code">

Customer ID: <span t-out="o.partner_id.customer_code"/>

</div>

</xpath>

<xpath expr="//div[@name='address_not_same_as_shipping']//t[@t-set='address']" position="inside">

<div t-if="o.partner_id.customer_code">

Customer ID: <span t-out="o.partner_id.customer_code"/>

</div>

</xpath>

<xpath expr="//div[@name='no_shipping']//t[@t-set='address']" position="inside">

<div t-if="o.partner_id.customer_code">

Customer ID: <span t-out="o.partner_id.customer_code"/>

</div>

</xpath>

</template>

</odoo>

In this example, the client code is displayed in the address section of the invoice PDF template By using XPath expressions, you can precisely position elements, ensuring that the customer code appears correctly based on the address configuration.

Odoo18 lets businesses to customize reports with Python, and you can make dynamic changes, inherit existing reports in Odoo18, and even create new modules: Apart from this, it can be enhanced in various ways along the phase of planning and testing to help you discover more about what is happening in our businesses.

Ready to customize your Odoo reports? Contact us today at Transines Solutions for expert guidance and support in customizing Odoo to your business needs