Reports in colobbo turn your work order checklists and tasks into polished, shareable PDF documents. This guide covers how to set up how your work order reports look, and every way to download and share them. Template and inspection reports have their own guide — see "Template and inspection reports: layouts, downloads and sharing".
The two kinds of work order content
Your work orders produce two kinds of PDF, depending on how the work was captured:
Checklist report — the classic work order checklist: sections of questions with answers and photos, for the work order and all of its child work orders.
Task report — the tasks (inspections) linked to a work order, each with its questions, answers and media.
A work order shows a Checklist tab in its details page when its work order type uses checklists. Tasks appear in the Tasks tab.
The Checklist tab on a work order — the same content the checklist report prints.
Setting up your report look
Go to Work Orders → Projects, open your project, and switch to the Report Settings tab. Everything you change shows instantly in the live preview on the right — what you see there is exactly what downloads.
Report title and footer text — the heading on page one and the small text at the bottom-right of every page.
Header and footer lines — optional one-liners on every page; paste a URL and it becomes clickable in the PDF.
Logo — upload one or paste a URL. If you leave it empty, your organisation's logo is used automatically, so reports are always branded.
Banner, cover page and report theme — decorate page one, add a full cover page, and pick a colour theme (or set a custom brand colour).
Page size and child work order detail — A4 or US Letter, and whether child work orders show a compact or full details card.
Free-text sections — standing instructions or boilerplate that prints at the top of every report.
Photo options — thumbnail size (how many photos per row), photo resolution, and whether file names and upload dates print under photos.
Download email — the subject and message used by "Email me the link" and "Share with someone", with variables:
[WOCode][Project][WorkOrderType][AssignedTo][Status][Company], filled from the first work order in the download. Leave empty for the standard email.
Report Settings under your project: (1) every layout control, (2) the live preview — what you see is what downloads.
Downloading work order reports
Downloading follows your selection:
On the work orders grid — select one or more work orders and the action bar appears at the bottom with Excel (list export) and the Download menu.
On a work order's details page — the Download button in the toolbar applies to the work order you have open.
The menu holds everything in one place:
Documents — tick Checklist, Tasks, or both. Tick Photos to also get a zip of the work order's media (for up to two work orders at a time).
Include child work orders — on by default; child work orders are included in the document. Turn it off to export just the selected work orders.
One PDF per group / Separate PDFs — see the scenarios below.
Summary — the box at the bottom tells you exactly what you'll get before you commit: how many groups, work orders, tasks and files.
The selection bar and its Download menu: (1) pick your documents, (2) child work orders and merge mode, (3) exactly what you’ll get, (4) download, email or share.
Good to know: if the selection has no checklist content but does have tasks, an amber note appears suggesting you tick Tasks — so you never download an empty report by accident. Archived and deleted work orders are never included in any report.
Merge scenarios — what you'll get
A parent work order and its child work orders form a group. Groups never mix into one another's documents — each group always produces its own file.
You select | Mode | You get |
One work order with children | One PDF per group | A single continuous PDF — parent first, then each child, with continuous page numbers and bookmarks |
One work order with children | Separate PDFs | A zip with one PDF per work order (duplicate names get numbered automatically) |
Several unrelated work orders | One PDF per group | A zip with one merged PDF per group — never one giant mixed document |
Work orders with tasks | One PDF per group | One merged task report per group |
Work orders with tasks | Separate PDFs | One PDF per task, organised in folders by group |
A work order with no checklist data on a child | Any | The child shows as a single "no data" line — visible but not padding the report |
Download, email or share
Once your options are set, pick how the file reaches you:
Download — the file is prepared and saves to your device automatically the moment it's ready.
Email me the link — carry on working; a download link lands in your inbox when the file is ready, using your configured email subject and message.
Share with someone — type any email address and they receive the download link directly.
Share with someone — they receive the download link by email.
Tracking progress
Large reports are prepared in the background. After you click Download you'll see a short confirmation, and the progress tracker in the top bar shows a live percentage. The file saves automatically when it completes — no need to wait on the page.
After clicking Download: (1) a short confirmation, (2) live progress in the top bar.
The top-bar tracker — the file saves automatically at 100%.
Quality details you get for free
Section headings are never stranded at the bottom of a page — a heading always starts together with its first question.
A question and its answer always stay together; photo answers keep the question with at least the first row of photos, and long photo sets continue on the next page marked "(continued)".
Every photo in the report also appears in a media gallery at the end of its work order's section, captioned with the question it belongs to — photo ownership is always clear.