Ideas on getting files on the UI

This is right. I’ve already talked about this before.

https://www.sitepoint.com/community/t/is-there-an-alternative-to-ajax-in-the-following-scenario/320509/8?u=mawburn

A system I am rewriting does something similar. It was solved by sending the reports to the user’s email because the reports are very time consuming. There is no need for a heartbeat or websocket because the data is handled outside the web client.