Context:
One of our core features is the generation of reports with climate data from sensors. Up until recently, we used “print as PDF” in the browser to download these reports, but now we have launched a new update that generates the reports in PDF in Appfarm instead - much easier for the user and with a standardized design not dependent on browser settings.
Problem
When generating reports for 2 or more sensors, there is often a timeout (15 sec?) that cancels the operation.
We would prefer to keep this functionality in Appfarm, as it is already built, works fine, and the only problem is speed. What to do?
Please check out this article for supported methods to generate a PDF within Appfarm Create. Which method are you using to generate the PDFs? Perhaps another method is better suited to your case.
If a PDF with many sensors is too complex to generate, is it possible to generate smaller PDFs that only take data from one sensor per PDF?
We are using the ‘Generate pdf-file into …’ action node to generate our PDF reports. The PDF contains a front page, a table of contents, a summary of the report, and 1-2 pages per sensor.
We wanted an easy page break functionality, that’s why we have gone for the action node instead of using html2pdf library.
Can you try to put that function (producing the html text) into e.g. an update object, storing the html text into an app variable? Just to verify the size of that html, and whether it is the html generation or pdf generation taking all the time?
Next, try to run generate pdf by databinding that App variable (containing the html) instead.
