how to control the scheduling of many reports?

[MarkElls]

we currently develop reports in Crystal Reports 9.0. These are scheduled through Crystal Enterprise. We use the Crystal Management Console to view and maintainthe secheduling of the reports.
Generally a report is requested on a recurring basis (event based). The report instance will be e-mailed to several people as an Excel file. There are currently 60 reports like this. We are going to expand to 200+. Now when there is an amendment to the scheduling of reports ie a recipients name changes I have to delete the report instance and re-enter all the details again ie recipients, data format, parameters, database, scheduling.
NOw I can see the number of reports growing and in a couple of months time I could be spending all my time doing the changes alone.
I am completely new to CE, Cry' Reports. MY background is C , SQL and Unix and I have been working on this for a couple of months. What is really getting to me is I could have completed this work if only I did not have to use Crystal Reports and Crystal Enterprise.

I am considering changing the report instances to create a file and then cretae loads of e-mail stationary to distribute the reports as thjat would be easier.

Please help as currently I dont understand how on earth it is possible to use crystal enterprise to do anything more than distribute one report to one person.

Thanks in Advance.
Mark.

 

[Turkbear]

Exactly how would you do this if you did not use CR and CE?
Custom write 200 reports in C and/or SQL [with all the formatting users want] and use some kind of cron job and a mailing list to distribute them?
Also, you should check your licensing if you are going to use CE to distribute that many reports to that many users.

But, I digress. Why not set up a page ( or a URL shortcut) for your users to run the reports themselves? Or send the reports to a file system destination and grant permissions to that location to a group or groups - that way only the group membership would need revising when recipients changed.

 

[MarkElls]

Thanks for the response. Sorry perhaps I did not explaion everything. I would write three reports and use parameters, just as I have done before, these would produce a comma seperated values file(csv) and then use the Unix box to mail to recipients. It is easy to do. My users require NO formatting, any that I put on just gets removed as they really dont want any formatting. These can be maintained with tools and skills I already have. Honestly this could have been SOOO easy to do.

The reports are all to be automated. Manual reports are an unacceptable option. I did consider placing the reports in a file location, but some of the users are remote users, it would have to go on to a 'public' drive so that all recipients could view the report, but they dont want the information to be public knowledge.

On licencing - I am unsure about this is there a licensing requirement for using crystal enterprise to send an excel file to a whole load of mail recipients. O thoiught that there was, but can not prove this to my boss. Also any site that says yes is not very clear about it.

Thanks.
Mark.

 

[bessebo]

Maybe I'm not understanding you too well but here is my suggestion. We currently have a lot of automated reports that run (but we use Seagate Info and are upgrading to CE9) and what we do as far as recipients of the emailed reports are concerned, is set up email distribution lists and send to the distribution list. When a new user needs to be added it is done within our email system (Outlook) or if an employee leaves we just delete it from the distribution list. In this manner, nothing has to be done within the Crystal Enterprise application (Seagate Info for us) and the reports go to the proper receipients.
It works for us.

Regards,
Bessebo

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
Bessebo's solution would seem to be the way to go..

Since no formatting is needed,and depending on your Database, you may not need to use a Report generator at all, simple Sql and Mail would do it, as you pointed out.

Check with Crystal about what additional licenses are needed if CE automates the distribution of Reports ( for v8.5 I believe it was needed if more that 50 were distributed - In V9 I understand it is a requirement for ANY automated delivery if you are licensed by Processor instead of named user)...

 

[MarkElls]

Well,
SQL and mail will do it. However I am being forced to use Crystal. And it seems like square peg and round hole. E-Mail lists have already been rejected. There is no way that the amendments will be handled by the people who control mail groups - thats a non starter.

These reports will be sent to regional, and area staff as well as central, therefore there is a kind of hierarchy and structure just were one recipient could receive a multitude of reports and for this reason I wish to do the following:

Find some way of getting all the details for the report instances ie history, destination, format, recipients etc into a spreadsheet etc or anything so that it can be manipulated. At the moment I have to delete the recurring report and retype it in with all the new details.

Now in CE9 when you look at the history of a scheduled report it does not show you all the details and will not allow you to edit this.

No one at work seems to have a clue, hgowever a mate has said that it may be possible to acces the object model with ASP or C# using .NET.

Now let me see a job that could have been done in two weeks now looks like a year long project I have already done 7 days training with Crystal courses and the instructors look blankly at me saying it can be done and then leg it out of the room. Next course is due for late October. Then I can start work again. Meanwhile I am thinking very nasty things about CE.

I feel like they forgot to install or make a scheduler for this product?

Oh and slowly going round the bend.

Thanks
Wonko the Sane

 

[Naith]

You can do what you state with ASP and .NET. However, even without that, you can still directly query the CINFO database and extract the details for each of your recurring jobs, using the report objects ids.

As for multiple recipients, emailing groups is definitely more workable than applying exactly the same information numerous times just to a assign different individual address. The time overhead you will spend looking for the job which writes to a specific address so that you can drop the schedule would be much higher than updating a simple group list, and it's for this reason that I subscribe to the method highlighted by bessebo myself. Alternatively, there are 3rd party products which handle group mailing for Crystal, which are listed at

http://www.kenhamady.com/bookmarks.html.

Naith

 

[MarkElls]

I have already seen the third party products and offer no sane explanation as to why we would not run out the door now and buy one.
I also offer no sane explanation as to why we would not use group addresses (apart from the guy controlling that does not want to).

"You can do what you state with ASP and .NET. However, even without that, you can still directly query the CINFO database and extract the details for each of your recurring jobs, using the report objects ids"

Now I have been trying to get .Net as several months ago I realsied this may be the way to do it, particularly ASP. However insanity steps in and I may have to wait sometime to get that purchased ands installed.

I am also booked for a Crystal course to show me how to access the data. I am really interested in how can I see the report data. I want to be able to see all of the data that is linked to a recurring report instance.

Thanks a lot for the help I feel like this is now moving the right way.

Oh and we have CE9 and Crystal reports 9 and I am concerned over this Crystal Broadcast licence. NOw da Boss says we have xx numbers of unused licences so its ok. I think he is as highly qualified to understand the issue as the pointy haired boss in Dilbert.

In fact since meeting CR my whole life has turned in to a Dilbert cartoon.

Thanks.
Wonko the sane

 

[Naith]

Dilbert,

Don't worry about the broadcast licence, if your concern is based on automating Excel based reports to a large userbase. Crystal Decisions seem to have sorted out the vagueness which surprised users automating reports to 50+ recipients into getting billed for 10k a month.

"Unrestricted broadcasting rights[b/]
Developers who purchase and register Crystal Reports 9 Advanced Edition will be extended the right to use Crystal Reports as part of an automated, static Report Distribution System (Crystal Reports 9 Broadcast License) at no additional charge."
- from Crystal Decisions website.

http://www.crystaldecisions.com/products/crystalreports/licensingchanges.asp

Naith

 

[MarkElls]

But we have CR 9 Professional and CE9. From reading that it looks like we are still going to have to pay. It looked like you were only ok if you had advanced.
Thanks.
Wonko.

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
It is very unclear regarding CE9 Professional..( Remember CE is NOT the same as CR, so it is my understanding that the distribution of managed reports thru CE is not affected by any CR restrictions ).

This link:

http://www.crystaldecisions.com/products/crystalenterprise/editionsmatrix.asp

Shows that BOTH Professional and Premium versions of CE9 support distribution by format and/or destination with no footnote about additional licensing required.