How to set up automatic emailing of reports

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How to set up automatic emailing of reports

How to set up automatic emailing of reports

A Report Export is a scheduled task that runs a report on a schedule and emails it, or saves it to a folder. The PDServer runs it, so nobody needs to be logged in. Use it, for example, to email each department head a monthly summary of their department’s printing.

Before you start: the PDServer sends the email through an Email Send Account. If you have not set one up, see How to create an Email Send Account. (If there is none, Resource Manager offers to create one when you choose to email the report.)

Create the Report Export

  1. Open Resource Manager.
  2. In the tree, click Scheduled Tasks > Report Exports.
  3. Click Add. The Report Export window opens. Fill in its four pages as described below.

Page 1: name, format and destination

  • Report Export name: replace New Report Export with a descriptive name, for example Monthly printing per department.
  • Execute on PDServer: the PDServer that runs the task.
  • Export file format: the file the report is sent as. PDF (*.pdf) is chosen by default. For Excel, Excel Workbook (*.xlsx) keeps the report’s layout, and Excel – Data Only (*.xlsx) sends only the figures, which is easier to sort and total. CSV (*.csv) suits importing into another system.
  • Send condition: Always send, or send only when the report has more or fewer records than a number you set (Record count greater than or Record count less than). For example, Record count greater than 0 sends the report only when it has something in it, which is how alerts work.
  • Destination: Email, or File to save the report in a folder instead.
  • For an email:
    • Account: the Email Send Account to send from.
    • To: the email address to send the report to. Separate several addresses with a semicolon (;). Add Cc and Bcc addresses if needed.
    • Subject and Message: these are filled in for you; change them if you like.
    • File name: the name of the attached report (Export unless you change it).

The subject, message and file name can include auto-replace tags, which are filled in each time the report runs. Click where the tag must go, then click its button under Auto-replace tags: Licence name, Report Export name, Report name, ‘From’ date, ‘To’ date, ‘Run’ date or Software version. For example, the subject starts as Scheduled export of %ReportName% from %LicenceName%.

Then click Next >.

Page 2: schedule

  • Activate on date: the first day the task can run; leave it on today unless you want a later start.
  • Execute time: the time of day the report runs.
  • Deactivate on date: tick it only if the task must stop on a certain day.
  • Schedule Pattern: how often the report runs:
    • Hourly: every hour.
    • Daily: every so many days, or Every weekday.
    • Weekly: every so many weeks, on the days you tick.
    • Monthly: on a day of the month (for example day 1), or for example the first Monday, in the months you tick.
    • Annually: on a date each year, for example 1 January.

Then click Next >.

Page 3: choose the report

  1. In the tree, click the report to send, for example Usage Reports > All Usage Reports > Grouped by Department. The tree has the same reports as PD Reports. Selected report shows your choice.
  2. Click Next >.

Page 4: report settings

  • On the Data Options tab and the filter tabs, choose the report settings as you would in PD Reports, for example Summary or Detailed, grouping, and which departments to include. See How to open a printing report.
  • Under Time Period, set how far back the report goes from the moment it runs: Show data from a number of hours, days, weeks or months prior to the execute date. For a monthly report that runs on the 1st, enter 1 and choose months.

Then click Finish.

Test it now

You do not have to wait for the schedule to check that the report arrives:

  1. In Scheduled Tasks > Report Exports, right-click the Report Export and click Execute now. The Execute on Next Refresh window opens.
  2. Choose which date the report is calculated back from:
    • Use the current execution date & time to run it as if it were running now.
    • Set to specific date and time to run it for an earlier period. For example, on 15 March, to get February’s report from a 1 month Report Export, set it to 1 March 00:00:01.
  3. Click OK. Resource Manager asks the PDServer to refresh, and the PDServer runs the task straight away.
  4. After a minute or two, click View > Refresh and check the Last run, Status and Last message columns. Then check that the email arrived.

Other useful commands

Right-click a Report Export for these:

  • Duplicate: copy it, for example to make the same report for another department.
  • Disabled: stop it running without deleting it. Click it again to turn the Report Export back on.
  • Change executing PDServer and Change email send account: change these for several Report Exports at once (select them first).

 

Document revision date: 2026/11/03
Software version: 2.5.15.3

How to set up automatic emailing of reports