Schedule Discoverer Reports

A scheduled workbook is a read-only copy of a workbook that Discoverer processes at a particular time and frequency. For example, you might want to process worksheets in a workbook called Monthly Sales Report at midnight on the first day of each month. You typically use scheduled workbooks to produce regular reports or to produce complex reports that must be processed at off-peak times. Each time a scheduled workbook is processed (or run), Discoverer produces a scheduled workbook results set. A scheduled workbook results set is a version (or snapshot) of the source workbook made at a particular time. You can schedule a whole workbook or particular worksheets in a workbook. For example, if you choose to process Worksheet A and Worksheet B in a workbook, the scheduled workbook results set will contain a copy of worksheet A and a copy of worksheet B.

What are Scheduled Workbooks

When you create a scheduled workbook, Discoverer makes a copy of the workbook that you schedule and processes this copy. If you update the original workbook, you need to create a new scheduled workbook to implement the updates. For example, you create a scheduled workbook to process Workbook 1 once per month. Discoverer takes a copy of Workbook 1 and processes it once per month. If you update Workbook 1 (e.g. add an item to a worksheet) you need to create a new scheduled workbook to process Workbook 1. Once Discoverer processes a workbook, you can use the scheduled workbook results sets produced just like an ordinary Discoverer workbook. For example, you can: • Open scheduled workbook results sets in Discoverer Plus Relational and Discoverer

Viewer • Print and export scheduled workbook results sets • Save scheduled workbook results sets in the database with a new workbook name • Share scheduled workbook results sets with other Discoverer users

Note: If you share scheduled workbook results sets with other Discoverer users, each user can see all of the data in the results set, regardless of the database access privileges they have been granted. You manage scheduled workbooks using the Scheduling Manager (choose File | Scheduling Manager to display the "Scheduling Manager dialog"). You do not have to run Discoverer for Discoverer to process scheduled workbooks. • You must have the required privileges to schedule workbooks. Contact the Discoverer

manager for more details. • If you share a workbook with a Discoverer user and then create a scheduled workbook

based on that workbook, you need to explicitly share the scheduled workbook with that user.

For example, you create a workbook called Workbook 1 and share Workbook 1 with Discoverer user A. If you create a scheduled workbook based on Workbook 1 that you want Discoverer user A to access, you must share the scheduled workbook with Discoverer user A.

When to use scheduled workbooks Typically you schedule workbooks in any of the following circumstances: • If a workbook will take a long time to process. Scheduling a workbook to be processed at

off-peak times avoids overburdening the server during peak times. • If you want to archive or produce a snapshot of data at specific points in time. • If you process a large or complex workbook or worksheet that exceeds the time limit set

by the Discoverer manager. When this happens, a schedule option is displayed informing you that the worksheet query time exceeds the time limit. You can then click the Schedule button and schedule the workbook to process the workbook at off-peak times that are not restricted by the time limit.

• If you want to process a workbook at regular intervals (e.g. a weekly report of sales

figures). • If the Discoverer manager has specified that you can only open scheduled workbooks

results sets (i.e. you are not allowed to open ordinary workbooks). • If you want to share workbooks with Discoverer users without those Discoverer users

having to have explicit database access privileges to the data.

Schedule Selected Report

Click Manage Schedules…if this option is grayed out you do not have permissions to schedule reports. Normally the report writers (Rpt_Admin and Pr_Admin) will be the ones that schedule jobs.

Schedule Selected Report

Scheduling Manager houses both Pending Workbooks, Unscheduled and Completed workbooks depending on your setting on how long to keep the result set.

Schedule Selected Report

Strongly recommend choosing report and then renaming report with Sched in the name. This is important if you intend to have this job run every month. This way the report is static and no one could make changes that could effect the scheduled job’s results. Reports that you want to auto generate each month should NOT contain parameters, but should be rewritten to use Sysdate so it will return data based on the scheduled date. Using sysdate instead of normal parameter update calculations to use the following: (trunc(sysdate)+86399/86400) this will always put the 11:59:59 on the end of date. Call this calculation: Process_Date and add to report so scheduled reports will have this date directly in report If you want to use report that contains parameters you will need to schedule report for each month changing Scheduled name to include month description or parameter elements.

In this case we are using the standard Month End Member counts. When you schedule a job you can select all worksheets or only particular worksheets to generate each month. The above example we have chosen all worksheets contained in this workbook.

• Enter here the first time you want report to run. Please be careful that you enter the correct timestamp especially for the FIS which is timestamp sensitive. Choose how often you want this report to be generated. Since this report didn’t use parameters, setting to do once a month will automatically run every month end based on the timestamp used until the report is Unscheduled.

• Choose to keep results, and decide for how many days to keep results.

Now when you review the Scheduling Manager you will see this job is pending. When report has been generated you will see the pending change to Complete. Above you will also notice where some reports have been Unscheduled….but not deleted. Unscheduling reports will allow the results to remain intact. If you delete unscheduled report, you are also deleting the results set…so be careful.

Even if the report used to create scheduled report was already shared, Discoverer creates a new scheduled report and you must also share the scheduled report or your users will not be able to see those reports. Although there are numerous Users in the Database you will only be using the ones shown above. CIS reports should be shared with CISMIS, FIS non payroll reports should be shared with FINMIS and FINANCE, and Payroll related reports should only be shared with FINMIS. If you created report as Pr_Admin you can also share a non payroll report with the other report writer user Rpt_Admin and vice versa for reports written by Rpt_Admin. It is not necessary to share scheduled reports with Portal_Admin unless you intend to use in the Portal.

Once Scheduled report is complete and shared, users will have access from both Discoverer Plus and Discoverer Viewer. Expand the dropdown list and choose Scheduled Workbooks.

As you can see in the example above…there are different types of Scheduled reports. The ones with dates in front are scheduled based on a parameter…remember you have to create scheduled workbook for each month if you are using parameters in report. The report SCHED_Acct_....is using no parameters so it only has to be scheduled once and will run each month end.

When you open a scheduled job you are able to run each tab like your normally do in a standard discoverer report

You can also create scheduled job that is on demand…other words, schedule report to run now…this allows you to share with users so they are all using the same scheduled report and not using resources to run the same report themselves. This is very helpful especially when the report is one that takes some time to compile the data.

To schedule report on demand is basically the same steps as regular scheduled job. Choose the report, choose the worksheets you want on demand.

The only difference here is you would choose to schedule workbook immediately. Set to repeat as NEVER and then decide if you want to keep the results, if so you need to enter number of days to retain these results.

Pay close attention to the modified date as this will be the only ref to whether this was a scheduled report or a report scheduled on demand. You will see the tab Results:1 when that is expanded it will display the worksheets you requested to be part of the scheduled job.

Points to Remember

• Even though you have shared the original report with CISMIS, FINMIS or FINANCE…if you schedule that report you MUST share the scheduled report as well.

• You cannot edit the read-only copy of a workbook that Discoverer processes…this is the scheduled workbook results. This is so results remain consistent based on specified time and frequency set up when schedule was done.

• If you decide to use a report that requires parameters…just remember you can copy a scheduled report, change the description for next month and change the time report is run. This will save you a lot of time if you are scheduling 12 months.

• Unscheduling reports will allow the results to remain intact but will no longer run that scheduled job. If you delete unscheduled report, you are also deleting the results set…so be careful.

Points to Remember cont.

• If the scheduled workbook has not yet been processed, you delete the instruction to process the workbook and the read-only copy of the workbook that Discoverer processes. The scheduled workbook is removed from the list of scheduled workbooks in the Scheduling Manager dialog.

• If the scheduled workbook has been processed, you stop the instruction to process the workbook in the future but you do not delete the scheduled workbook. The scheduled workbook remains in the list of scheduled workbook in the Scheduling Manager dialog, with the Status column set to 'Unscheduled'. You keep the scheduled workbook results sets that have been produced

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