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 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 will run

    • 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 will run under, for example a report that runs daily at 13:00 will do 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 will run 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 will also turn green. Dates 29-31 are hidden if not appropriate for the selected month. 

    • Enter the Time. For the Once option, this will be the time today or tomorrow when the report should run. For the Hour/Minute option, this will be the time at which the report should start to run today or tomorrow and will continue to run periodically from this time onward. For the Day, Week, Month, and Year options, this is the time of day at which the report will run 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 will continue 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 will run 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 will 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 will be shown and will 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 will be attached to the email.

    • You can 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.

    • You can also select users or groups to send the report to via email using the To Users field. 

      • Any users and groups that are already selected are listed. If the list runs to more than one page, you can use the pagination controls at the base of the To Users field to navigate through the list.

      • Click the Add button at the base of the To Users field to find users and groups to add to the list. You will be prompted to select a folder and/or type in a text filter to find the correct users and groups.

      • To remove users and groups from the distribution list, check the boxes next to them in the To Users field, and click the Delete button at the base of the field.

      If you select a group to send the report to, the report will be sent to any users who are members of that group at the time of the report being sent.
      If you select users or groups to send the report to, users (whether selected explicitly or as members of groups) must be enabled and must have email addresses defined for them in the application at the time of the report being sent, otherwise they will not receive the report.
      If selected users or groups are later deleted from the application, then they are removed from the schedule’s distribution list automatically.
      If the list of email addresses to which the report is sent exceeds the maximum character limit for an email’s To Address field, then the list will be truncated. This may result in some of the intended recipients receiving the report while others do not. If this occurs, you are recommended to reduce the size of the distribution list.

    • 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.
     

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