How to Export Many-to-Many Relationships in Django Admin Using django-import-export

Learn how to tailor the data exported from your Django admin page when dealing with many-to-many relationships using the `django-import-export` package.
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Exporting Many-to-Many Relationships in Django Admin

When managing data in a Django application, especially when working with many-to-many relationships, it’s common to need to export data in a user-friendly format. A common issue encountered by developers is that when exporting models that include many-to-many relationships, the output only shows the primary keys instead of the desired related field information.

In this post, we will explore a common problem and provide an effective solution to handle exporting many-to-many relationship data using the django-import-export package.

The Problem

Consider the following Django models:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

In the Django admin, you may want to export bins along with their associated item part numbers, but when you attempt to do so, a column labeled part_number appears empty.

The default export behavior shows either primary keys or an empty column for the many-to-many fields, which is not helpful for generating easily readable data reports.

The Solution

To export meaningful data from a many-to-many relationship, you can customize how the data is exported using the ManyToManyWidget in the django-import-export package. This widget allows us to specify which field to display in the exported dataset.

Step-by-Step Implementation

To achieve exporting part_number instead of primary keys for the related items, follow these steps:

Import the Required Widget:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Define the Resource Class for Bin:
Create a BinResource class that will be responsible for exporting the data.

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Register the Resource in the Admin:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Expected Result

When you implement the above changes, the exported data will display part_number in the corresponding column, formatted with a separator (in this case, |), as shown below:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Conclusion

Using the ManyToManyWidget significantly enhances the usability of data exports from the Django admin interface, especially when dealing with many-to-many relationships. By specifying which field to display for related models, you can ensure that your exported datasets are meaningful and user-friendly.

Now you can effectively manage many-to-many relationships and ensure that exports are both informative and visually coherent!