Enterprise Reporter 3.5 - Report Manager User Guide

Creating a Schedule

The first step in scheduling reports is to create a schedule. One schedule can be used for many reports. Reports can be deposited in a file share you specify, can be emailed to selected users, or can be distributed using both methods.


	NOTE: You need to provide credentials in order to generate and deliver reports. Ensure these credentials have write access to the target share. If you want to allow all users of the Report Manager to have access to the target share, you can permission the Reporter_Reporting_Operators and/or the Reporter_Reporting_Admins groups. If you use an account that is not a member of either of these groups, you must manually give the account permission to read the database, otherwise no reports will be generated.

Delivering Scheduled Reports by Email

You can choose to have all of the reports on a schedule delivered by email. Reports can also be delivered to a network share, since some organizations do not allow certain file types to be sent, and restrict the size of attachments.

To configure email, you need to provide an SMTP server. Your administrator may have provided a default server for you to use; otherwise you will need the server name and port number. Unless the SMTP server is configured to accept anonymous connections, you need to provide valid credentials for the SMTP server. The same SMTP server will be used for all schedules. If you change the SMTP settings on one schedule, all other schedules will be automatically updated.

When the Attach email to report option is selected, Enterprise Reporter will attempt to email the reports as an attachment. If your email setup does not allow for this, the email will have a link to the share where the reports are located if you have also selected the Save to share option.

To set up email delivery of reports

Create or edit a schedule. For more information, see Creating a Schedule .

Optionally, select Send report to share to deposit the finished report to a share.

Type or browse to the share path where the reports are to be delivered.

If you are typing, use the form \\servername\share.

You can filter in the browser to make it easier to locate a particular share.

Select Send Email.

You can select Attach report to email to send the report as an attachment.

If you opt to send attachments, you can also select Do not attach reports with empty data results to avoid sending empty reports.

If this is your first schedule, select Configure the mail server.

If you make changes to the mail server configuration, all schedules will be updated.

For more information, see Configuring a Default SMTP Server .

In the From field, type in the sender’s email address or select one of the 10 most recent entries from the pull-down menu.

In the To, CC, and BCC fields, type all of the recipient’s email addresses, separated by a comma or semicolon. You can also select from the 10 most recent entries from the pull-down menu.

Optionally, type a subject that clearly indicates the purpose of the reports being emailed.

If the Subject field is left blank, the default subject from the template will be used.

Optionally, modify the Body of the email message.

For more information, see Modifying Scheduled Email Messages .

Click OK.

To configure your mail server for all schedules

Create or edit a schedule.

If necessary, select Send Email.

Click Configure mail server.

If your administrator has configured a default SMTP server, or if you have previously configured an STMP server for a schedule, the fields are filled in.

Enter the required configuration information following the steps found in Configuring a Default SMTP Server .

If your SMTP server is configured to accept anonymous connections, you do not need to provide an account.

Test your connection.

Click OK.

Modifying Scheduled Email Messages

When scheduling reports, one of the Delivery options is to Send Email. When the Send Email option is selected, the DefaultSchedulingTemplate.xml template is automatically loaded into the Body field as the default message. For more information, see Modifying Scheduled Email Messages .

You may modify the email message for this schedule, but it is important to note that the email template contains variables and tags that control the content and layout of the email message.

The following options may be used anywhere within the body of the message.

Table 30. Scheduled Email Message Global Variables
Variable	Content
{%report_schedule%}	schedule name
{%network_path%}	path location of scheduled reports
{%filename%}	name of the file containing scheduled reports

Table 31. Scheduled Email Message Formatting Tags
Tag	HTML Layout Equivalent
<body></body>	<body></body>
<static></static>	<p></p>

To create a section that will be repeated for every report in the schedule, use <repeat> and </repeat> to indicate the beginning and the end of the section.

The following variables and tags may be used anywhere within the repeating section:

Table 32. Scheduled Email Message Repeating Section Variables
Variable	Content
{%name%}	name of report
{%description%}	description of report

Table 33. Scheduled Email Message Repeating Section Formatting Tags
Tag	HTML Layout Equivalent
<row></row>	<tr></tr>
<plaintext></plaintext>	<td></td>
<dynamictext></dynamictext>	<td></td>

An example of an email message using all available variables and tags is shown below.

<Body>

<static>The report schedule "{%REPORT_SCHEDULE%}" has successfully completed. The following reports can be found in this location:

</static>

<row>

<plaintext>Report Name:</plaintext>

</row>

<row>

<plaintext>Description:</plaintext>

<dynamictext>{description%}</dynamictext>

</row>

<row>

<plaintext>Filename:</plaintext>

<dynamictext>{%filename%}</dynamictext>

</row>

</repeat>

</Body>

Modifying Scheduled Email Templates

You can choose to have all of the reports on a schedule delivered by email. For more details, see Delivering Scheduled Reports by Email . The success, failure, or attachment size of the scheduled reports determines which email template is used.

The templates are located in the following directory on the computer where the Enterprise Reporter server is installed:

•

Program Files\Quest\Enterprise Reporter\Server\EmailTemplates

Email templates are provided for the following four scenarios:

•

A schedule completes successfully and the total size of all reports is less than the maximum of 500KB.
DefaultSchedulingTemplate.xml
DefaultSchedulingTemplate.xslt

•

A schedule does not complete successfully.
FailureTemplate.xml
FailureTemplate.xml

•

The total size of all reports exceeds the maximum of 500KB so no reports are attached.
DefaultSchedulingTemplate.xml
DefaultSchedulingTemplate.xslt

•

A schedule is partially complete because one ore more reports fail.
PartialCompleteTemplate.xml
PartialCompleteTemplate.xslt

You can use any XML editor to modify the templates (.xml) and their corresponding email style files (.xslt). Some prior knowledge of XML and Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation will be helpful. For more information, see Email Template Structure (.xml) .


	TIP: Given the precise nature of the content formatting, using an XML editor to validate changes to the email templates and their style files is recommended.

Email Template Structure (.xml)

The template files contain tags such as <EmailTemplate>, <Subject> and <Body>. The attributes and textual content of these tags may be modified. For example, to change the subject of an email template, open the applicable template file and change the content between <Subject> and </Subject>.

To add more information to the email messages, the following tags can be repeated within the same template:

•

•

•

•

Text between the {%....%} tags must remain unaltered as they control relative content embedded in the email messages as they are generated. For more information, see Modifying Scheduled Email Messages .

Modifying the Maximum File Size for an Email Attachment

The default maximum file size for Enterprise Reporter e-mail attachments is 1MB. You can increase the maximum attachment size to accommodate larger reports by modifying the Enterprise Reporter configuration.

How to modify the maximum file size for an email attachment

Open the Enterprise Reporter Report Manager.

Click the System Configuration tab.

Click Configure SMTP server used by Enterprise Reporter under Email Settings.

Enter an Attachment Size Limit (in megabytes) that accommodates your reports.

Click OK.