Different scheduling options?

Aaron.park · Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2005 3:40 pm Post subject: Different scheduling options?

I like the product, it is a good product.
The scheduling options are a bit tricky to get used to though.
It is a bit tricky because you have 5 time variables at work there.
Is there are way that you could just set a report to a static schedule, something like... telling CD to run a certain report, at a certain time, without it asking questions?
I like the product, but I have about 300 reports to schedule, and having to figure out a way for such a large number of reports to run while taking into account 5 time variables for each of them... makes my head hurt.
You could cut out the run history, off time, and frequency, change the on time to run time, but that may bit a bit drastic way of rethinking it.

Other than that, I recently upgraded to 5.7.2, but the version I was using before that, the export all button would just export the first report N times, where N is equal to the number of reports I had scheduled (36 at the time). Not sure if this was an error, but I haven't tried to hit the export all button again.

Um, also, it seems that the row headers have gotten buried under the menu bar in 5.7.2, but it could just be me, I can provide a screenshot if you want.

Aaron.park · Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2005 4:09 pm Post subject:

Sorry, just wanted to clarify my first point.
Instead of the way it is now, it would be more useful and less time comsuming to set it up like a run queue and schedule the reports to be put into the run queue at a certain time, ya dig?

kgroff · Site Admin

Thanks for the notice about the 'Export All' bug. The fix will be in the next release. As far as the row headers, does the problem go away if you right click in the report area and select "Button Captions On" or "Buttons Captions Off"?

Now, to answer some of your questions:
1 It is a bit tricky because you have 5 time variables at work there. ...I have about 300 reports to schedule, and having to figure out a way for such a large number of reports to run while taking into account 5 time variables for each of them

I assume you are referring to the five options of Frequency, Calendar, On Days, On Time, and Off Time because Run History does not need to be adjusted. Out of the five variables, 2 are optional and 2 may rarely need to be changed. I have tried to set the defaults to what the majority of people would use to limit the amount of data entry. For instance, On Days is M-F and Calendar is the entire calendar year. If these defaults work for you, you only need to set Frequency, On Time, and Off Time. You can limit you entry even more if you are not concerned when you reports run during the day because you can leave On Time and Off Time blank. If that is the case, then you only have the Frequency variable to complete.

2. Is there are way that you could just set a report to a static schedule, something like... telling CD to run a certain report, at a certain time, without it asking questions? You could cut out the run history, off time, and frequency, change the on time to run time, but that may bit a bit drastic way of rethinking it.

This would work if you are only running your reports infrequently, such as daily, weekly, etc. When I first wrote Crystal Delivery, I needed to run a manufacturing yield report every 30 minutes. If I created CD using a set run time like you suggest, it would mean that I would have to schedule this single report 48 times to get it to update every 30 minutes for a whole day.

Aaron.park · Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2005 7:26 pm Post subject:

Its kinda rough, but what I had in mind was something like thishere. (forgive the sloppyness and lack of detail, but I only had 5 minutes on my lunch break)
Also... when I have some errors in the report parameters, it dumps the report and sends me a corrupt .pdf file, is there any way to trouble shoot which parameters are causing the error?

kgroff · Site Admin

Can you give some more detail on how you would control the schedule? I looked at the picture you attached and in seems to me that this method limits the functionality (keep in mind that I am not a programmer by trade). Here are some of my questions?

1. How do you keep track of what reports have already exported and which need to be export without keeping track of the run history?

2. I need to export a report to coincide with the quarterly earnings announcements (which happens on the same four days each year) how would you schedule this report without creating 4 unique schedules. In CD I use a custom calender which only includes the 4 days that I am interested in and then set the frequency to N Days:1

3. How would you run a report on the 15th of every month? In CD, I set the frequency to Day of Month:15

As far as the corrupt file, can you detail the scenario? If the parameter is not valid, it would not be passed to Crystal Reports and then Crystal Reports should prompt you for the missing paremeter (if you have this option checked in Crystal Delivery).

Aaron.park · Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 1:23 pm Post subject:

I'm not a programmer by trade either, thats just something I made in 5 minutes using the Access form designer. (what language did you use?)
But here goes...
1: Just for the options in that little picture, For the static ones... you could disregard run history, because they would be ran at certain times regardless of the last time they were run.
For the frequency ones... You would indeed need to keep track of the run history, but... well I'll get back to you on that.
2. Well... that is why I put that button for more options in there... you could stuff a lot more presets in there and an option for custom scheduling.
3. I'll get back to you on that one.

I did export that one as html, and was the same filesize. It just had the language specification up at the top, the the html, head, title, and body tags and /tags.
It does prompt for parameters, I'll try installing crystall reports on that machine and see if that does it.