If you want to customise exports beyond just selecting which columns are output then CSV Builder plugin allows you build templates with fastercsv.

The Table() method could have saved me a ton of work a few days ago If I’d only known about it. Definitely better than shifting ordinally.

If you put the names of the headers in the first line of your csv file, like:

name,address,email
…

You can just just Ruport (which uses FasterCSV under the hood):

Table("my.csv", :records => true) { |t,r| User.create(r.to_hash) }

Of course, using FasterCSV is fine too, and probably a little more efficient.

With acts_as_reportable, you can use any of your find options, so you can write:

content = User.report_table_by_sql("SELECT name, address, email FROM users").as(:csv)

as:

content = User.report_table(:all, :only => [:name, :address, :email]).as(:csv)

Also, you can get rid of the file code:

table = User.report_table(:all, :only => [:name, :address, :email])
table.save_as("#{RAILS_ROOT}/report.csv")

Those are just a few tips, nice article

-greg