Enable exporting of timeline comments to a csv

Related products: None

Today if you have a small enough report that includes timeline notes you can download the report as an excel file and the formatting of the excel is fine.

 

If you have a larger data set and create a rule to export that data (or if you just export to csv and the export is mailed to you in csv format), the html characters in the Notes field in the csv destroy the integrity of the csv and the file cannot be used.


I assumed that the checkbox ‘Don’t Include HTML tags’ in the rule setup was going to address this issue and we’d be able to export the Notes in a single field in the csv, but that’s not the case.  The removal of html tags doesn’t work if you open the file in excel, and if you open it in a textpad the html is removed but the data spans multiple rows.​​​​​​​

 

I tried using the Notes Plain-text field in the Call to Action object, but exporting that results in multiple rows (similar to the ‘remove html tag’ functionality.


Can you provide a solution that would allow us to export Timeline notes in a single column, similar to how we can download that field in the excel directly from a report.  We have a large dataset we need to export so exporting from the dashboard doesn’t work, we are emailed a csv which is broken.


Thanks,

Mary

@mary_taylor thank you for sharing your request here. Redirecting this to the product team to check the possibilities. 


@mary_taylor you can use the notes plain text field in the Activity Timeline object to export Notes. If your use case is to export Comments as mentioned in the Subject of this post, you can use Activity Comments object.


@Chirag I just got back to this and wanted to show you that even when exporting from that Activity Timeline object, some of the rows are broken.  I don’t know if it’s a particular tag you are not accounting for, but here is a snapshot of an export where the formatting is broken:

 


@Chirag I meant to say Activity Comments object (not timeline).  The above is an export from Activity Comments.


@Chirag Exporting from Activity Comments also breaks.  I have an open support ticket on that.