[Reporting] Reports from Canvas have an Elastic branded frame around it

[felix-lessoer]

Kibana version:
7.9.2

Elasticsearch version:
7.9.2

Original install method (e.g. download page, yum, from source, etc.):
Cloud

Describe the bug:
Using the report - Template in Canvas results in a full page design that is customizable for the user. Creating a PDF report for this results into a copy of each page including a frame with Elastic branding around it.
Many users using Canvas for reporting don't wanna have this branding.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Go to Canvas
2. Create a report template
3. Create a pdf report of that

Expected behavior:
The PDF should look 100% like the canvas page

Screenshots (if relevant):
Status.pdf

@shaunmcgough

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/kibana-reporting-services (Team:Reporting Services)

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/kibana-canvas (Team:Canvas)

[tsullivan]

Hi,

By coincidence, this issue is resolved in #78036 and is already in the branch for the 7.10 release. Therefore I'm going to close this.

Attached are sample PDFs made using Canvas in a developer snapshot of 8.0.0

Summary.pdf
Light.pdf

Thanks!
-Tim

[poffdeluxe]

Re-opening this issue for now. Looks like the PR #78036 removes the border but there's still the Elastic logo I spoke with @shaunmcgough and removing branding (or having the ability to remove the Elastic branding) is a part of this issue as well

[tsullivan]

Thanks @poffdeluxe I took another look and understand this is more about the added branding that doesn't match the expectation.

@shaunmcgough this issue is one that has been on my radar for a little longer: #35685.

It looks like the requirements would be:

• Show the added footer and logo when:
  • there is a custom logo in the Space's UI Settings
  • the Space's UI Settings enables the Elastic branding (default)
• Otherwise
• use just the image data as the entire PDF page

The current behavior adds the text "Powered by Elastic" when there is a custom logo in UI Settings. Personally, I don't think we have a big reason to do that. There is an open issue for us to remove that, and we could knock that out in the same change: #35685

[shaunmcgough]

Heya @tsullivan let's remove the branding "Powered by Elastic" regardless. I don't think there is ever a reason to spray logos or branding on a Canvas. It might make sense in other areas, but not for Canvas. The requirements you listed would therefore only be the last bullet point, "use just the image data as the entire PDF page". What do you think @timductive?

[timductive]

I agree with @shaunmcgough, one of the benefits of Canvas is a fully white-labeled experience for a custom brand. We should always default to presenting the canvas as designed.

[tsullivan]

Hi, users today use the custom logo option. Removing the branding / border by default seems like a non-backwards compatible change. Usually we step through these things by enabling a non-default option to remove it, and in the next major make removal the default option.

If the option to remove the logo is set, but a custom logo is present, we should present the custom logo.

How does that sound?

[tsullivan]

@shaunmcgough @timductive @poffdeluxe I think I've been thinking about this problem a bit wrong. The way layouts of Canvas reports are created would affect Dashboard reports and PDF reports of single visualizations as well. There is value in keeping the current behavior for those two applications, but not for Canvas.

We can make a new Layout definition for canvas that gets rid of all the borders and wouldn't add any logo, while keeping the layout the same for Dashboard and Visualize.

I just ran a test PDF in Canvas and looked at the job parameters that were provided to the PDF generation API. They look like:
layout:(dimensions:(height:720,width:1080),id:preserve_layout)

We'll add a new Layout definition that will change the id:preserve_layout to id:canvas

(Edited comment)

I would like to roll out the change in the way I described, to make canvas layout the default for Canvas in the next major version, but provide it as a setting that users can opt-into until 7.x.

Just trying to think of the users that didn't chime up on this issue that are used to PDF export working the way it is.

[shaunmcgough]

@tsullivan thanks for the research on this. i understand the solution you propose, and think it's good. I do have one question though. How does the opt-in process look? Do you see that being a prompt somewhere during the PDF creation, a setting, or something else?

[tsullivan]

How does the opt-in process look?

The most common way, from an implementation perspective, would be add a setting in kibana.yml that would default any workpad to use canvas as the layout, and also provide a UI Setting that could enable it per-Space - that gives users the ability to opt in when they can't edit kibana.yml.

Those settings would be available but deprecated in 8.0, and the default setting in the code will be to have Canvas use the canvas layout. In 9.0, those settings would not be available, and Canvas would be hardcoded to use canvas layout.

[poffdeluxe]

@elastic/kibana-presentation has this on our roadmap for potential 7.11 release. We'll take over @tsullivan's work on this feature in #81403 to make sure the proper UI is in place for Canvas to make use of this feature.

TODO: I need to create an issue to track the breaking change of making the default setting use the canvas layout in 8.0