Scheduling Business Objects Reports

What does it do?

Allows a Business Objects (BO) report to be ran automatically on a set schedule and the results emailed as an Excel File to one or more people.

Why is this done?

It makes life easier!  You don't have to remember to go into BO on the first of every month to run a Production Report, or on Monday's to run the Gift Acknowledgement Report.  Once the Schedule is created, BO will automatically send you the data. If you happen to be out on the standard run date, the data will be waiting for you when you get back.

One schedule can be used to send the same report to multiple people.  No longer will you have to run the report, save it, and then email it to the CDO, their assistant, and other Gift Officers. 

Why should you create your own schedule?  Because then you have the power to update or change the schedule as needed.  You will be able to add or remove additional recipients.  If the report fails to run (due to BO not refreshing), you'll have the power to click on the report and choose “Run Now”.

How is this done?

In BO, locate the report you want to run.  Some reports, like the Gift Acknowledgement Report, have been created for different time periods.  Any report labeled as “Weekly” will automatically select items process in the last 7 days (Week ago today through yesterday).  Any Report labeled as Monthly will automatically select items processed during the previous month, these are typically set to run on the 1st of each month.

 

How to copy an existing schedule / Reschedule:

1. Navigate to your desired report and right click. Select History. 

2. Find the schedule you want to reschedule within the history. This will likely have a status of paused or failed. Right click and select "reschedule".

3. Under Replace, select "Create a new schedule from existing schedule".

 

FAQ: How to check an existing schedule

1. Navigate to your desired report and right click. Select History. (see 1 in the previous section for screenshot)

2. Find the schedule you want to check within the history. Right click and select "Details". You should be able to view information such as recurrence type, next run time, and expiration date of the desired schedule.

 

How to create a new schedule:

Locate the report you'd like to schedule and right click on it. From the pop-up window, select Schedule.

 

The Instance Title will automatically be populated with the name of the report.  Be sure to customize it by adding either the unit name, MGO name, or recipient's name. (e.g., SI Gift Acknowledgement Report)

 

For Destinations, click on “Add”.  From the drop down menu, select Email.

 

Once you select email, the email form will come up.

• First, uncheck the box next to “Keep an instance in the history.”  When this box is checked, BO will maintain a completed copy of the report in the instance history every time it is ran.  This makes finding your schedule to make updates or changes much more difficult.
• Next, in the “To:” line, enter one or more email addresses.  If entering multiple, please separate using a semi-colon (;) and a space.
• For “Subject:”, click on the “Add Placeholder” and select Title.  This will put your report's Instance Title as the subject line of the email.
  • 
• Next, include a message as needed.  We suggest a brief statement outlining what the report contains, such as “List of all gift transactions processed in the previous week.”
• Next, make sure the “Add Attachment” box is checked, and then click the radio button for “Use Specific Name”.  
• From the drop down menu, again select Title and then select Date.
• Ensure that the “Add File Extension” box is checked. Click “Confirm”.
  • 

Next, scroll down and change the Recurrence settings. Recurrence allows you to set how often, what day, and at what time a report is ran. 
Please note the time portion of the Start Date/Time.  This is the time the report will be run on the dates scheduled.  Schedules can be set for as early as 7am and as late as 9pm.  The DART data refresh, where information is copied from DART into BO, runs between from 10pm until 7am the following morning.  No reports/schedules can be run during that time frame.    If you schedule a report during the refresh period, the system will automatically delete the schedule and you will not be notified.

 

Next, switch to the “Report Features” tab and edit Formats. Select either Microsoft Excel - Reports to get an Excel file or Adobe Acrobat to create a PDF. Do not select Microsoft Excel - Data, or you will receive an Excel file of the output of each query behind the report appended to its own tab!

 

 

Then, edit the Prompts.  Click on the “Edit Prompt Values” button and answer the prompt(s) as needed. 
Note that the values entered here will be used every time the report is ran.  If there is a prompt for Date, BO will re-use the date entered.  It will NOT automatically advance the date based on the recurrence set. 
 

 

Finally, click the Schedule button in the lower right hand corner.

 

FAQ: Check the status of the scheduled report

If you do not receive the file in your inbox, you may want to check the status of the scheduled report.

As is shown above, right click on the report and click on History.

If the report has a "failed" status, an alternative approach would be sending the report via the BO Inbox. (Note that if your report is large, sending to email may not work)

 

When you schedule the report, for Destinations, select BI Inbox instead. Edit the recipients.

 

Type in the uniqname of the recipient. Verify that the right ones are selected and click on Ok.

When the report is generated, it will appear in your BI Inbox. Note that no notification will be given, so don't forget to check it if you are expecting a scheduled report.