Scheduling a Report

Sage Intelligence Reporting reports can be run unattended, from operating system batch files or under the control of external scheduling software (such as the Microsoft Windows Scheduler or the Microsoft SQL Server Agent). This can be useful when you have certain reports that you need to run on a regular basis.

Note: When reports are run unattended they are automatically closed on completion. Scheduled reports must use the Generate Output File or the Retain All Run Instances option to be useful.

Typically reports that are scheduled will have the Generate Output Fileproperty set so that the unattended reports are saved to a specific location.

 

The process is made up of three parts:

Note:  The workstation where the scheduled task has been created must be turned on at the scheduled time.

Specify the Output Location of the Report

  1. In the Report Manager window, highlight the desired report.
  2. On the properties window, select Show Advanced.
  3. In the Generate Output File field, use the ellipses button (…) to browse to the desired location.
  4. Either specify a new file name to be used, or select an existing file that will be overwritten when the scheduled report run takes place.

     

    Note:  If an existing file from a previous scheduled run exists in the specified scheduled location it’s automatically overwritten without any warning.  In the Generate Output File property specify a file name such as C:\MyReports\Sales_@[email protected]. Whenever the report is then run a copy will be saved with the name Sales_ current date.

Generate the Scheduler Command

  1. With the report selected, on the Tools tab, select Scheduler Command.

  2. If the report expects parameters then you will be prompted to enter these. Click OK.

    Note: When scheduling a consolidated report, you will be prompted to select a company. This is the company to use to log in. The data that is used is determined by the Database Consolidation List in the properties of the report being scheduled.

  3. A message box is displayed that shows the syntax for running the report, and is simultaneously placed on the windows clipboard in order for it to be pasted into the scheduled task command field. An example is shown below:

When reports are run unattended the information that is usually sent to the Process Monitor window is redirected to a log file. You should review this log file to make sure that your reports are running as expected. The log file is named BICoreUnattend.log and can be found in the Intelligence folder which is a sub folder of the installation folder. You can view this log file in a text editor application such as Notepad. The file can also be opened directly from the Tools tab, by selecting Log File. The application returns a process exit code for the scheduled report to indicate Success (0) or Failure (1) allowing the calling process to check the result of a shelled report.

Set up a Windows Scheduled Task

 

To view an example of how to schedule a report using the Windows Scheduler, click here.