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docs(reporting): document the Report Builder CSV, Excel and JSON formats - #16036

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Description

A Generated Report can now be produced as CSV, Excel or JSON alongside PDF and HTML. This documents the new formats.

The documents (PDF, HTML) are what you send to a reader. The data formats carry the rows a report is built from rather than the document built around them, which is what makes a report automatable: a script, a spreadsheet, or a downstream system can consume one directly, including from a scheduled rule.

What the docs now cover

Report Builder page

  • The five formats, split into the Document and Data groups, with what each one contains.
  • That a data format includes only Tabular and Detail blocks: a cover page, a chart, a widget and the other stock blocks have nothing to put in a cell and are left out. The generate dialog names which of a template's blocks will be included and which will be left out before you generate, and a template with no Tabular or Detail block cannot be generated as a data format at all.
  • The per-format shape. A single-block template produces a plain CSV; a multi-block one writes each block after a # <block header> comment line. Excel gives each block its own worksheet, named after the block header. JSON is one object carrying the report name and generation time, then a blocks array.
  • How a truncated block is reported in each format.
  • A note on the generate step, and on chart blocks being absent from the data formats.

Report Builder API page

  • The file_format table with all five values, and which three are the ones to automate against.
  • A worked JSON envelope example, and why rows are keyed by field path rather than by label: a label can be renamed in the UI, a field path cannot.
  • The lifecycle script's FILE_FORMAT comment.

Triage Engine node reference

  • The report.generate node's Format setting, with the same caveat about which blocks a data format carries.

Notes

English only. Translated pages are regenerated on the quarterly refresh per docs/TRANSLATIONS.md, so no .<lang>.md files are touched here.

Paired with the Enterprise change that adds the formats; both sit on the bugfix line.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

A Generated Report can now be produced as CSV, Excel or JSON alongside PDF
and HTML. The data formats carry the rows a report is built from rather than
the document built around them, which is what makes a report automatable: a
script, a spreadsheet or a downstream system can consume one directly.

Documents what a reader needs to know before choosing one:

- The five formats, split into the Document and Data groups.
- That a data format includes only Tabular and Detail blocks, because a cover
  page, a chart or a widget has nothing to put in a cell, and that the generate
  dialog names the included and left-out blocks before you generate.
- The per-format shape: CSV sections for a multi-block template, one Excel
  worksheet per block, and the JSON envelope (with a worked example), including
  why JSON rows are keyed by field path rather than by label.
- How truncation is reported in each format.
- The `file_format` values on the API, and the Triage Engine report node's
  Format setting.

English only; translated pages are regenerated on the quarterly refresh.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
@blakeaowens blakeaowens added this to the 3.3.300 milestone Sep 22, 2026
@github-actions github-actions Bot added the docs label Sep 22, 2026

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