Guide: Exporting Data from Odoo¶

In addition to importing, odoo-data-flow provides a powerful command-line utility for exporting data directly from Odoo into a structured CSV file. This is ideal for creating backups, feeding data into other systems, or for analysis.

--- config: theme: redux --- flowchart TD ExportA["Odoo Instance"] L_ExportA_ExportB_0@--> ExportB{"odoo-data-flow export"} ExportC["Configuration
(CLI Options)"] --> ExportB ExportB L_ExportB_ExportD_0@--> ExportD["Output File
(e.g., exported_partners.csv)"] ExportA@{ shape: cyl} ExportD@{ shape: doc} style ExportA fill:#AA00FF style ExportB fill:#BBDEFB style ExportD fill:#FFF9C4 L_ExportA_ExportB_0@{ animation: slow } L_ExportB_ExportD_0@{ animation: slow }

The `odoo-data-flow export` Command¶

The export process is handled by the export sub-command of the main odoo-data-flow tool. Unlike the import workflow, exporting is a single-step operation where you execute one command with the right parameters to pull data from your Odoo database.

Command-Line Options¶

The command is configured using a set of options. Here are the most essential ones:

Option	Description
`--config`	Required. Path to your `connection.conf` file containing the Odoo credentials.
`--model`	Required. The technical name of the Odoo model you want to export records from (e.g., `res.partner`).
`--fields`	Required. A comma-separated list of the technical field names you want to include in the export file.
`--file`	Required. The path and filename for the output CSV file (e.g., `data/exported_partners.csv`).
`--domain`	A filter to select which records to export, written as a string. Defaults to `[]` (export all records).
`--worker`	The number of parallel processes to use for the export. Defaults to `1`.
`--size`	The number of records to fetch in a single batch. Defaults to `10`.

Understanding the `--domain` Filter¶

The --domain option allows you to precisely select which records to export. It uses Odoo’s standard domain syntax, which is a list of tuples formatted as a string.

A domain is a list of search criteria. Each criterion is a tuple ('field_name', 'operator', 'value').

Simple Domain Example: To export only companies (not individual contacts), the domain would be [('is_company', '=', True)]. You would pass this to the command line as a string:

--domain "[('is_company', '=', True)]"

Complex Domain Example: To export all companies from the United States, you would combine two criteria:

--domain "[('is_company', '=', True), ('country_id.code', '=', 'US')]"

Specifying Fields with `--fields`¶

The --fields option is a simple comma-separated list of the field names you want in your output file. You can also access fields on related records using dot notation.

Simple fields: name,email,phone
Relational fields: name,parent_id/name,parent_id/city (This would get the contact’s name, their parent company’s name, and their parent company’s city).

Full Export Example¶

Let’s combine these concepts into a full example. We want to export the name, email, and city for all individual contacts (not companies) located in Belgium.

Here is the full command you would run from your terminal:

odoo-data-flow export \
    --config conf/connection.conf \
    --model "res.partner" \
    --domain "[('is_company', '=', False), ('country_id.code', '=', 'BE')]" \
    --fields "name,email,city,country_id/name" \
    --file "data/belgian_contacts.csv"

Result¶

This command will:

Connect to the Odoo instance defined in conf/connection.conf.
Search the res.partner model for records that are not companies and have their country set to Belgium.
For each matching record, it will retrieve the name, email, city, and the name of the related country.
It will save this data into a new CSV file located at data/belgian_contacts.csv.