Report | How can I automate a recurring report?

XPLAN's Scheduler function is a useful tool to automate reports or a series of steps on a regular basis.

Through scheduler you can automate client management reports, xmerge reports, Xport Reports, emails, Sending SMS as well as task or thread template activation

To use most of these options you may need to set up the xmerge report, xport report, email, SMS, task or thread template if not already available.

**The main set up required in order to run the Scheduler, is having a list of clients set up first via a Criteria Search, please refer to the How do I create a new Advanced Search Criteria? article for instructions.**

Once set up you can include these in a series of steps that can be set to run via a schedule.

 

Example of Review/Consent Report Schedule below

1. From the left menu, click on  --> Site --> Scheduler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Once the page loads, Click Add

3. In the Details tab, enter a Schedule Name

4. In the Recurrence tab:

Date

Once off - only run once.

Daily - If the report is to be run everyday, all the boxes must be ticked, otherwise can set the days specifically.

Weekly - Report can be sent on a specific day each week. EG Recurs every 3 Week(s) on Friday would send the report every 3rd Friday.

Monthly - Report can be sent on a specific day of the month EG Day 1 of every 1 month(s) would send on the 1st of each month

Yearly - This example will be using this logic of having one Schedule for each month of the year to ensure accurate data is produced in the report such as the monthly Opt-in/Consent reports EG Every January 1 will send the report on on the 1st of January each year. 

Duration

Start Date - Enter the date at which the report is to be run. If the Start Date is left as todays date, however you have set it for a later date as per above Date section, the report will run on the later Date.

If the Start Date is left at todays date, and you would like it to be run the same day, the Time (Next section heading) will need to be in the future.

Time

Following on from Duration, the Specific Time to Run will need to be set to a future time if running the same day. We would do not recommend doing this as there is a Run Now function which will be shown later in this article (Step 22).

The preferred Specific Time to Run should be set at an earlier time so there is less activity in Xplan for the reports to generate which will also prevent potential site slowness/longer merge times during working hours.

5. Now we need to finalise the Steps for the scheduler to run

6. Click on Add

7. Change the Step Type to Client Selection

8. Click OK

9. The Name field can be left as is or changed, however this does not show in the reporting. The Saved Search list is where the Advanced Search will be listed, please choose the Saved Search based on the corresponding Month

10. Click OK

11. Click on Add to add in a new step

12. There are different types of report options to choose from, in this example, we will be using the Xport Report type which has been pre built. You're site may have a similar report named something else or may fall under the Client Merge Report.

13. Click OK

14. Enter the Name relative to the Report

Report - Choose from an already created Xport, or if you need a new one created, please contact support. The Scheduler may also need to be re done to update the Report list with the newly created one.

Output Type - Recommended option is CSV Report, however you have the choice of PDF also.

Please note, the options for the Output Type that have "Unlimited" after them will produce as many results as possible within the one document. This does have limitations, especially with Excel CSV, the limit to the number of lines is around 1 million, however if a report was to produce more than that, the excel file will not produce all the lines. The normal CSV Report option will generate as many spreadsheets as needed if the line limit has been exceeded.

15. Click OK

 

16. Click on Add to add in a new step

17. The final step for a Schedule to work, is the Notification

18. Once selected, click OK

19. Enter the Name relative to the Report, this will be the subject of the Email/Notification

Notify Message - The report will appear in the Bell icon next your name once it has been generated

Notify Email - an email will be sent to the Recipients Preferred email address chosen in Step 20

Attachments Suppressed - The merged report/s file size will be supressed (this may be required when running a large PDF report)
Attachments Zipped -The merged report/s file will be merged into a Zip folder (this may be required when running a large PDF report)

We recommend ticking both Notify Message and Notify Email

 

20. Search for the User who is going to receive the report, and select them from the dropdown menu

21. Once the user has been selected, you must click on  to ensure the "Recipient" has been added.

Repeat Steps 20-21 for each user who is to receive this report. You will need to click on  to reset the Recipient and search for another user.

22. Click OK. When you do, even if you only choose one person, the below message will still appear, click OK also.

23. Once the final step has been added, there is no specific "Save" button, you must click on Close to "Save" the schedule.

24. The final step to ensure the Scheduler runs accordingly, click on  next to the Schedule Name and click on Enable.

If its a One-Off report, you can click on Run Now to generate the report then and there.

Steps 2-24 will then need to be repeated for each of the Corresponding months to ensure that respective months data is being accurately produced.

The Enabled column will now read as Yes and the Current Progress will show the next Scheduled date