# Enhanced External Link Print/Download Functionality **URL:** \ **Category:** Product Ideas\ **Created:** [October 17, 2018, 9:00pm UTC](https://pug.phocassoftware.com/t/enhanced-external-link-print-download-functionality/761 "2018-10-17T21:00:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![alegg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/919ad9/32.png) [@alegg](https://pug.phocassoftware.com/u/alegg)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 9:00pm UTC](https://pug.phocassoftware.com/t/enhanced-external-link-print-download-functionality/761/1 "2018-10-17T21:00:57Z")
I appreciate that external links is a new feature and a good one. We are running into some issues where the end user would like to print or download the Phocas report into Excel but the external link function only allows a print screen like print option. It would be great to have better printing and excel download capabilities from an external link. ---
**Author:** ![dkarpinski](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/pug.phocassoftware.com/dkarpinski/32/774_2.png) [@dkarpinski](https://pug.phocassoftware.com/u/dkarpinski)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2018, 12:37pm UTC](https://pug.phocassoftware.com/t/enhanced-external-link-print-download-functionality/761/2 "2018-11-01T12:37:53Z")
Agreed. This should be a standard function with Phocas. I found and am using the following application to accomplish this until we have this ability within Phocas. [http://www.faststone.org/FSCaptureDetail.htm](http://www.faststone.org/FSCaptureDetail.htm) ---
**Author:** ![anon33838874](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8c91f0/32.png) [@anon33838874](https://pug.phocassoftware.com/u/anon33838874)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2018, 3:33am UTC](https://pug.phocassoftware.com/t/enhanced-external-link-print-download-functionality/761/3 "2018-11-07T03:33:42Z")
Hi @alegg, I’ve logged your suggestion in our system. Due to the differing security requirements of each business, I think this would need to be an option. Are your users mainly trying to print favourites or dashboards? ---
**Author:** ![alegg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/919ad9/32.png) [@alegg](https://pug.phocassoftware.com/u/alegg)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2018, 1:18pm UTC](https://pug.phocassoftware.com/t/enhanced-external-link-print-download-functionality/761/4 "2018-11-07T13:18:02Z")
Thanks for looking at this Will. My users are mainly trying to print favourites. ---
**Author:** ![Tim.Leonard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Tim.Leonard](https://pug.phocassoftware.com/u/Tim.Leonard)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2018, 4:03pm UTC](https://pug.phocassoftware.com/t/enhanced-external-link-print-download-functionality/761/5 "2018-11-12T16:03:34Z")
Just a quick note on the external links feature. External links are available to unlicensed users, and therefore have limited functionality. Licensed full users of Phocas have the ability to print favourites and dashboards. ---
**Author:** ![blehke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e495f1/32.png) [@blehke](https://pug.phocassoftware.com/u/blehke)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2019, 1:58pm UTC](https://pug.phocassoftware.com/t/enhanced-external-link-print-download-functionality/761/6 "2019-08-21T13:58:36Z")
I know this is an older thread, but wanted to give some feedback on dashboards. I am coming from Tableau… the display customization on Dashboard-like views there were far greater than what I’m seeing in Phocas, Not complaining (much) - overall, I like Phocas much better… but I do have users asking how they can display more / better data on a dashboard (i.e. on a Bullet chart, display current/previous values, not just %), and have all that in a **printable** view. This is for a salesperson to be able to print to PDF in prep for a meeting with a customer - there’s no way we could create and manage all the dashboards required for our customer base. Any chance I’m just missing some functionality that’s already there? ---
**Author:** ![anon67006604](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@anon67006604](https://pug.phocassoftware.com/u/anon67006604)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2019, 1:58am UTC](https://pug.phocassoftware.com/t/enhanced-external-link-print-download-functionality/761/7 "2019-09-03T01:58:53Z")
Thanks for the suggestion @blehke. I have logged an internal suggestion to gather further interest and be part of our roadmap. ---
**Author:** ![StuartH](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/pug.phocassoftware.com/stuarth/32/394_2.png) [@StuartH](https://pug.phocassoftware.com/u/StuartH)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2019, 12:10pm UTC](https://pug.phocassoftware.com/t/enhanced-external-link-print-download-functionality/761/8 "2019-09-03T12:10:30Z")
I agree with Tim in that external links should be highly restricted. I certainly wouldn’t wan’t an unprotected link being able to be exported too easily. Read-Only or Full users should however be able to export to some degree, and I’ve raised a few times about better pagination for print regardless of the user licensing level.