Scheduling Reports

About Report Schedules

Report Schedules can be used to automate the running of reports and their distribution. For example, users can schedule a weekly report to run automatically at the end of the week and arrive in theirinbox ready for them at the start of the following week. Alternatively, they could schedule a report to go to your upper management or to another distribution list as required. Scheduled reports are sent as email attachments in one of the following editable or read-only formats: 

• PDF document

• Excel spreadsheet

• HTML

• Comma-separated file (CSV)

• Web Archive (an offline report format)

A report schedule defines when and how frequently the report should be run, the parameters for the report and where to send the report output. You can schedule a report to run once or regularly. A given report may have multiple schedules and each schedule can have different parameters and/or recipients.

Each report schedule is assigned to an owner, which is initially the user who created the report. Report parameters are based on the owner’s permissions. For example, if a default parameter set is used to report on the owner’s business area, then any resources outside of this scope is not included in the report. In addition, if the owner of a schedule has their user account disabled (for example, because they have not logged in for a long time), then the schedule is also disabled. A schedule can be assigned to another user if it is still required after the original owner has moved on from their current role in the business.

Schedules are generally managed on a report-by-report basis. Administrators can also mange schedules on an owner-by-owner basis, so if a particular user moves on, then all of that user’s schedules can be re-assigned to new owners from a single place. See Managing User Report Schedules.

Creating a Report Schedule

To create a report schedule:

1. Perform one of the following:

   • If you are an Advanced Mode user, open the Tools Menu , select Reporting > Reports, and navigate to the folder containing the report.

   • If you are a Standard Mode user, go to your Home Page and expand the heading for the folder containing the report.

2. In the Reports toolbar, click Schedule. The New Schedule page is displayed to allow you to create a new report schedule. This page has the following sections:

   • Schedule: Specify the schedule details, such as the name and the frequency the report runs.

   • Parameters: Specify the parameters to use when the report is run.

   • Delivery: specifying the delivery format and delivery method for the report results.

3. In the Schedule section, provide the following:

   When choosing the time to schedule a report, be aware that by default, backups are scheduled between 0200 and 0300 local server time, each morning. No data is imported to the database during this time. If you want a scheduled report to run against the previous day’s data, set up the schedule time to at least one hour after the backup completes to ensure your data has reached the database.

   • Name: A name for the schedule.

   • Description: An explanation of the report schedule to assist in managing reports. This field is optional.

   • Schedule Timezone: Shows the timezone that the report schedule runs under, for example a report that runs daily at 13:00 does so at 13:00 in the timezone shown. This field depends on the user settings and cannot be changed here.

   • Schedule: Click the Schedule drop-down to select the report frequency from the following options:

     • Once: Run the report once only at a given time of day. The report runs when this time is next reached, whether that is today or tomorrow. 

     • Hour/Minute: Run the report every few hours or minutes, starting at a given time today or tomorrow.

     • Day: Run the report at a particular time of day, either daily or every few days. 

     • Week: Run the report at a particular time of day, on selected days of the week. 

     • Month: Run the report at a particular time of day on specific dates within specific months (for example on the 1st of every month, or the 31st of every month with 31 days). Alternatively, run the report at a particular time of day and selected days of the week, during a specific week of the month (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th or last week of the month). 

     • Year: Run the report once a year, at a particular time of day on a specific calendar date. 

   • A dialog appears for you to specify further details according to the schedule option that you have chosen:

     • Once: You only need to enter the time at which the report should run (see next step).

     • Hour/Minute: Type the number of hours/minutes and select the time unit from the drop-down. For example, the report can run every 4 hours from the schedule start time.

     • Day: Click the radio button for the desired repeat option (days of the week, every weekday, repeat every few days). For days of the week, click the button for the day you want, or hold CTRL while clicking multiple days. The buttons for the selected days turn green. If repeating every few days, type the number of days (for example every 3 days). 

     • Week: Click the button for the day of the week on which you want the report to run, or hold CTRL while clicking multiple days. The buttons for the selected days turn green.

     • Month (one week out of the month): Click the button for the month in which you want the report to run, or hold CTRL while clicking multiple months. The buttons for the selected months turn green. Click the radio button for one week out of the month, select which week from the drop-down and click the button for the day of the week you want, or hold CTRL while clicking multiple days.

     • Month (specific dates): Click the button for the month in which you want the report to run, or hold CTRL while clicking multiple months. The buttons for the selected months turn green. Click the radio button for calendar days. Click in the date box and type one more dates as numbers 1-31. Multiple dates can be separated by commas and ranges of dates can be typed with a hyphen (e.g. 5, 7, 10-20).

     • Year: Click the button for the month in which you want the report to run. The button for the selected month turns green. Click the button for the specific date in that month 01-31 – this button turns green. Dates 29-31 are hidden if not appropriate for the selected month. 

   • Enter the Time. For the Once option, this is the time today or tomorrow when the report should run. For the Hour/Minute option, this is the time at which the report should start to run today or tomorrow and continues to run periodically from this time onwards. For the Day, Week, Month, and Year options, this is the time of day at which the report runs on the selected days or dates. 

   • Optionally, click the End Date box to pick or type a date on which the schedule should end. If this is left blank then the schedule continues in perpetuity. This option is not available for the Once schedule option.

   • Click OK to confirm the schedule timings and frequency or Cancel to discard.

   • If you want to change the repeat options for the schedule frequency that you have selected, click Edit . If you want to change the schedule frequency itself, click Clear   to allow you to select the report schedule frequency from the drop-down list again.

   • Check the Enabled check-box to ensure the schedule runs or uncheck the box to save the schedule without running it.

4. Fill the Parameters section. This contains the same fields that you would see in the Parameter Bar if running the report manually. Different parameters can be saved for each schedule of the report, without affecting any parameters that have been saved for the report itself. See About Report Parameters and Viewing a Report for more information on report parameters. In summary, the parameters you are likely to see are:

   • [Parameter Set]: Labelled with the resource type to be reported on (for example, Agents). Select any of the listed parameter sets or select the option to create a new parameter set.

   • Header Text: Type a line of free text to display at the top of the report. You can use this to introduce the report to the schedule recipients.

   • [Filter]: If the report includes any filter dimensions then these appear as multi-select drop-down menus, labelled with the dimension name (for example, Session Type or Activity Type). 

   • Time Period From, Time Period To: The start date and time for the report and the end date and time for the report. Only shown for historical reports. Enter specific dates and times or select relative dates from the drop-downs.

   • Sort On: Click the drop-down menu and select a column to sort by. 

   • Sort Order: Click the drop-down menu and select whether the sort order should be ascending (A-Z or smallest to largest) or descending (Z-A or largest to smallest). 

   • Show Raw Data: Check the box to show durations as seconds, or leave unchecked to show the data in hh:mm:ss format. Only shown if the report contains durations.

   • Show Only Exceptions: Check the box to show only rows that meet the report’s threshold conditions. A row must match at least one threshold condition in at least one column. All total and sub-total rows are shown and still include any hidden rows.

   • Equipment: Select the source equipment to report on (if the resources in the chosen parameter set are present on more than one item of equipment that Analytics is receiving data from).

5. In the Delivery subsection, perform the following:

   • Click the Report Format drop-down menu to select the desired export format for the report to be generated in (HTML, CSV, Excel, Web Archive, PDF). A file of the selected format is attached to the email.

   • Type one or more recipient email addresses into the To field. You can also click the Cc/Bcc link to expose those fields in which to add further recipient addresses, and to optionally provide a reply address in the Reply-To field.

   • Type a Subject for the email.

   • Set a Priority for the email (High, Medium or Low) to determine whether it should be shown as important in the recipients’ email clients (may not be supported by every email client).
      

6. Click Save to confirm your schedule.

7. Repeat the above steps to create another schedule or click Back to return to the report page.

Viewing Report Schedules

Users can view the schedules for a report to confirm that they are running as expected and to confirm any other details. 

To view a report schedule:

1. Perform one of the following:

   • If you are an Advanced Mode user, open the Tools Menu , select Reporting > Reports, and navigate to the folder containing the report.

   • If you are a Standard Mode user, go to your Home Page and expand the heading for the folder containing the report.

2. In the list, find the report whose schedules you want to view and click on its name. The report opens.

3. In the Report Toolbar, click Schedule.

4. In the New Schedule Toolbar, click View Existing Schedules. This shows a list of the schedules for the current report.

5. Depending on the number of schedules, the list may span multiple pages. There are pagination controls in the top right to navigate the pages of the list. It is possible to select the number of schedules to show per page.

6. The schedule list shows the following columns of information for each schedule. Click on any column heading to sort the list by that column:

Column	Purpose
Status	Indicator showing whether the schedule is enabled  or disabled . If enabled, then the schedule runs at the next scheduled time. If it is disabled at that time, then it does not run.
Schedule	The schedule name.
Assigned To	The user who is assigned as the owner of the schedule.
Report	The name of the report that the schedule runs.
Path	The path in the folder tree where the report is located. The schedule itself is inherently located in the same folder.
Date Created	The date and time on which the schedule was first created.
Last Run	The date and time that the report schedule was last run and an indicator showing the status. The status indicator has the following values:   The scheduled report ran successfully.   The scheduled report did not run because of schedule errors.   The scheduled report has not yet run. Click the link to see the event history page showing the results of running the report.
Next Run	The date and time when this report is scheduled to run next, and an indicator showing the status of the next scheduled run. The status indicator has the following values:   The report schedule is enabled and the report runs at the next scheduled time.  The report schedule is disabled and the report does not run at the next scheduled time.   The next scheduled time for this report to run is in the past. Click the link to see the event history page showing the results of running the report.

Editing a Report Schedule

To edit a report schedule:

1. Perform one of the following:

   • If you are an Advanced Mode user, open the Tools Menu , select Reporting > Reports, and navigate to the folder containing the report.

   • If you are a Standard Mode user, go to your Home Page and expand the heading for the folder containing the report.

2. In the list, find the report whose schedules you want to view and click on its name. The report opens.

3. In the Report Toolbar, click Schedule. 

4. Click View Existing Schedules. The View Existing Schedules page (also known as the schedules grid) for that report is displayed.

5. In the list, find the schedule that you wish to edit and click on its name.

6. This takes you to the Edit Schedule screen which is identical to the New Schedule screen. (see Creating a Report Schedule).

7. Make any changes as needed.

8. Click Save to confirm changes, or click Back to discard the changes and return to the list.

Enabling and Disabling Report Schedules

To enable or disable one or more report schedules:

1. Perform one of the following:

   • If you are an Advanced Mode user, open the Tools Menu , select Reporting > Reports, and navigate to the folder containing the report.

   • If you are a Standard Mode user, go to your Home Page and expand the heading for the folder containing the report.

2. In the list, find the report whose schedules you want to view and click on its name. The report opens.

3. In the Report Toolbar, click Schedule. 

4. In the New Schedule Toolbar, click View Existing Schedules. The View Existing Schedules page (also known as the schedules grid) for that report is displayed.

5. In the list, find the schedules that you wish to enable or disable and check the box next to each one.

6. Click Enable  to enable the selected schedules, or click Disable  to disable them. 

7. Schedules do not run if they are disabled at the next scheduled time.

Reassigning a Report Schedule

Typically, a schedule should be reassigned to a new owner when the original owner has moved on from the role they had when they defined the schedule, but the schedule itself is still useful to the business and should continue. 

The parameters of the report are based on the owner’s permissions. For example, if a default parameter set is used to report on the owner’s business area, then any resources outside of this scope are not be included in the report). In addition, if the owner of a schedule has their user account disabled (for example, because they have not logged in for a long time), then the schedule is also disabled.

To prevent schedules from being ‘orphaned’, they must be reassigned or deleted before the user account that owns them can be deleted from the system.  

To reassign a schedule to a user, the location of the user account within the Analytics folder tree is required. For many organizations, this mirrors the user’s position in the organizational hierarchy.

To reassign a report schedule:

1. Perform one of the following:

   • If you are an Advanced Mode user, open the Tools Menu , select Reporting > Reports, and navigate to the folder containing the report.

   • If you are a Standard Mode user, go to your Home Page and expand the heading for the folder containing the report.

2. In the list, find the report whose schedules you want to view and click on its name. The report opens.

3. In the Report Toolbar, click Schedule. 

4. Click View Existing Schedules. The View Existing Schedules page (also known as the schedules grid) for that report is displayed.

5. In the list, find the schedules that you wish to reassign and check the box next to each one.

6. Click Reassign. 

7. A dialog appears, showing the folder tree and a list of users in the currently selected folder. Navigate to the folder in which the new owner is located and click on them in the list.

8. Click OK to select the user or click Cancel to exit the dialog without making any changes.

Deleting Report Schedules

Users can delete a schedule that is no longer required. This should only be done with absolute certainty that the report is not required. Otherwise, it is better to disable the schedule for a time, so that it can potentially be re-enabled later.

In addition, to prevent schedules from being ‘orphaned’, they must be reassigned or deleted before the user account that owns them can be deleted from the system.
 

To delete report schedules:

1. Perform one of the following:

   • If you are an Advanced Mode user, open the Tools Menu , select Reporting > Reports, and navigate to the folder containing the report.

   • If you are a Standard Mode user, go to your Home Page and expand the heading for the folder containing the report.

2. In the list, find the report whose schedules you want to view and click on its name. The report opens.

3. In the Report Toolbar, click Schedule.

4. Click View Existing Schedules. The View Existing Schedules page (also known as the schedules grid) for that report is displayed.

5. In the list, find the schedules that you wish to reassign and check the box next to each one.

6. Click Delete. A confirmation message is displayed. Select Yes to delete the schedule or schedules.