The Scheduler Service allows you to run reports, ExpressViews and Dashboards regularly at specified times. This can be useful for reports based on periods of time, such as weekly sales reports or quarterly earnings reports.

Note

The Scheduler Service is an optional feature. Check with your system administrator for more information.

Creating a Schedule

Schedules are created and edited with the Schedule Report Wizard.

To schedule a report:

1. Select the report you'd like to schedule in the Report Tree, then either right-click on it or click the Menu  icon and click Schedule Report.

2. Enter a Name for the schedule.
3. Choose which file type to save the report as.
4. Optional: For PDF or Excel, enter a Password to secure the output file.
5. Select a date and time for the schedule, and choose how often it should run:
   1. In the Schedule Time field, enter a time for when the schedule should run.
   2. Optional: To run the schedule as soon as it is created, select the Execute Immediately check box. This schedule cannot be given a recurrence pattern. Go to step 6.
   3. Optional: To run the schedule multiple times per day, select the Repeat Every check box and enter a time for how often it should repeat.
   4. Optional: To run the schedule on more than one day, choose a Recurrence Pattern from the available options:
      1. Daily: The schedule will repeat every day, every weekday, or every number of days. Enter a number of days for how often the schedule should repeat, or select Every weekday to run it every Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, and Fri.
      2. Weekly: The schedule will repeat every week, or every number of weeks, on one or more days. Enter a number of weeks for how often the schedule should repeat, and select one or more days when it should run.
      3. Monthly: The schedule will repeat every month, or every number of months, on a certain day. Enter a day for when the schedule should run, and a number of months for how often it should repeat.
      4. Yearly: The schedule will repeat every year on a certain day. Enter a day for when the schedule should run.
   5. Optional: If you have entered a recurrence pattern, enter a date for when the schedule should Start.
6. Optional: To add filters to the report click the Filters tab. If the report already has filters you can set their values here. See Filters for instructions.

   Note

   In versions prior to v2018.2, Chained Reports do not support scheduled filters.

7. Optional: To email this schedule to addresses from a database, see Emailing personalized reports.
8. Click the Recipients tab. To send the report to a list of email addresses, select the Email Reports check box and fill out the following fields:
   1. Enter the recipients' email addresses in the To, Cc, and Bcc fields. Separate multiple e-mail addresses with a semicolon.
   2. Optional: Enter an email subject in the Subject field.
   3. Optional: Enter an email message in the large text field.
   If you do not want to email the report, uncheck the Email Reports checkbox. The report will be saved to disk instead. You may have to ask your system administrator for the file location.

   Note

   To save the report to a repository instead of e-mailing it, review the Saving Reports to a Repository section below.

9. Optional: If this is a batch schedule, an Attach Report Output to Email check box is available. Clear this check box if you want to use this report to send alerts, and you do not want to email the report itself.
10. To execute a test run before finalizing the schedule, click the Test E-Mail button.
    1. The Test Recipients textbox will be pre-filled with the e-mail addresses from the To: field. Add, edit or delete e-mail addresses to send the test to in this textbox.
    2. Click Send to send the schedule’s email now. This is generally used to check the email’s content and formatting.
       

       

11. Click Finish to save the schedule.

Schedules can be edited after they are created. See Viewing and Editing Schedules below for more information.

Saving Reports to a Repository

In addition to being emailed, Scheduled Reports can be set to run and automatically saved to a specific location. This can be useful for users who wish to automate certain report executions but do not wish to add extra clutter to an email inbox.

To send Scheduled Reports to a repository instead of a recipient via email, simply uncheck the 'Email Reports' option in the Recipients tab when creating a new Scheduled Report. For more information on creating a Schedule Job, please see the Scheduling Reports guide.

Note

The availability of the Email Results checkbox is determined by the system administrator, so it may not be available in your environment.

Viewing and Editing Schedules

Click the Schedule Manager icon in the main menu to open the Schedule Manager. Depending on system configuration, you may be able to see reports scheduled by other users. Ask your system administrator for more information.

Each schedule is on a row with its most recent and forthcoming run times and a status indicating its condition.

• Ready: The schedule will run at its next scheduled execution time.
• Running: The schedule is currently running.
• Transmitting: The scheduled event has finished running, and the report is being sent to the users.
• Completed: The schedule has completed its final event, and will not run again. It will be removed from the list when the cache is flushed.
• Deleted: The schedule has been deleted, and will be removed from the list when the cache is flushed.
• Abended: The last run failed due to an error. The schedule will not run again.
• User Aborted: The schedule is running, but it was requested to be canceled. It will be marked as Deleted.

Scheduled events which have passed are copied to an archive row, so that there is a log of previous run times. Such events are labeled (archive). Deleting these rows will not affect the main schedule.

Schedules which are associated with a cached report are labeled (cache). See Execution Caching for more information.

Managing Schedules

To edit an existing schedule click the Edit icon at the end of the row. Changes to the recurrence pattern will affect all forthcoming run times. You can reuse or reset deleted or completed schedules by editing them. This will set their status to Ready.

To delete a schedule click the Delete icon at the end of the row. This sets its status to Deleted. If the schedule is already marked as Deleted, this removes the schedule from the list.

Completed and canceled schedules and archives may be periodically removed from the list. Click Flush to clear the Scheduler cache and remove them immediately.

Emailing a Report Immediately

Note

This feature can be disabled by the system administrator, it may not be available in your environment.

In addition to creating a recurring schedule, the application provides the option to email a report execution immediately. To do this, simply select the desired report to email and select the Email Report option from the dropdown menu. Users are then prompted to fill out the email address and select the output format for the report.

Batch Emailing Personalized Reports

Batch scheduling allows you to send personalized versions of reports to a list of email addresses. The addresses must be defined in a data category, the unique key of which is used as a blanket filter for the report. Each recipient receives a customized version, filtered by their unique key.

For example, if you wanted to send out a customized sales review, or a pre-filled tax form, or even a set of customized forms for each employee, batch scheduling allows you use one report for every person. This also has the benefit of only needing to run the report once.

Warning

Batch emailing should only be used as instructed by your administrator. If you are unsure about how to proceed, do not create a batch schedule. Ask your system administrator for assistance.

In order for batch scheduling to work properly, it requires access to a data category with a column of email addresses that must be either located within or joinable to the underlying table. This data category can be added in the Categories menu of the report. If this column does not exist, the report will abend with the following error:

System.Exception: Batch email column has no join logic to attach to report. 

Note

The category containing the email addresses for batch scheduling does not need to be added to the report itself.

To make a batch schedule:

1. In the Schedule Report Wizard, click the Batch tab.
2. Select the Run as Batch Report check box.
3. Optional: In the To and Cc fields, enter addresses to send a summary email for each completed execution.
4. From the Batch Email Field list, select the data field containing the email addresses for this schedule. Fields can contain a list of email addresses, separated by semicolons (;), as of v2017.3.8+.
5. Optional: Click the Recipients tab to enter a subject and message for the batch email.

You can reference data values from the email address data row in the message body. Type the parameter @batch_column@, where column is the name of a data field in the address category (in lowercase text). The value of the field replaces the parameter text in the message output.

Tip

The To, Cc, and Bcc fields are unavailable when using Batch. Dashboards can not be scheduled as a Batch report.