There are several ways to schedule the delivery of reports in ReportWORQ. In this article I will cover three specific options including, the ReportWORQ built-in scheduler, the exception check feature, and the ReportWORQ Rest API.
ReportWORQ Scheduler and Advanced Cron Syntax
The ReportWORQ Scheduler is an incredibly handy tool that allows users to configure a job to be run at a scheduled interval. Many users know about the Basic scheduler functions, which can run on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis, but what some users may not be aware of is the advanced scheduler. When adding a new schedule in ReportWORQ you can switch to the advanced scheduler in the options section.
The advanced scheduler allows the user to set a custom schedule using Cron syntax. Cron syntax is a 5 part string that tells the scheduler the exact time in which to run. The webpage Cron examples - Crontab.guru provides many examples and an explanation of how to use this syntax. We’ll cover a few examples here.
Let’s say that a user wants to have their reports sent on a quarterly basis rather than the monthly or yearly options that the basic scheduler offers. The Cron syntax for this example is “0 0 1 */3 *”. Which breaks down to at minute 0, at hour 0, first day of the month, every three months and any day of the week. If we wanted to change the time, we could change the second digit of this syntax to a 9 to make the report go out at 9am.
Perhaps a user wants to send out a report at the end of the workday every day of the week, but not weekends. The Cron syntax for this syntax “0 17 * * 1-5”. Again, dissecting this Cron breaks down to at minute 0, at the 17th hour of the day (5pm), on any day of the month, on any month, but only on days 1 through 5 of the week (weekdays). This may seem a little complicated to figure out from scratch, but understanding what is possible is the only necessary takeaway since Cron examples - Crontab.guru does such a great job at providing the most common examples and a tool to test your own variations.
Our final example is a schedule that runs on the first of every other month. This Cron syntax “0 9 1 */2 *” is at minute 0 of the 9th hour of the day (9am) on day 1 of the month and every 2 months and any day of the week.
With the Cron syntax and the advanced scheduler, the user has much more flexibility to create a schedule that aligns with their needs. If your scheduling requirements do not align to the normal calendar or are so specific that they do not fit into typical schedulers there are two more options available in ReportWORQ.
ReportWORQ Exception Check Feature
If you have a very specific schedule to determine if a report should run on any given day, and you’re able to provide that determination using a formula or lookup in the Excel file that ReportWORQ is generating, then that formula can instruct ReportWORQ whether to send the reports or not using the exception check feature. Details on the exception check feature can be found here. This feature tells ReportWORQ whether it should, after compiling the reports, to send the reports to the recipients or to discard the generated reports. Typically, this feature is used to send reports to specific recipients based on a condition such as sending reports only to managers that are over budget. However, this technique can also be used for a custom calendar and conditional schedule. By scheduling a job to run daily, and then looking at a value in a formula inside the Excel file to determine if today’s the day that the report should be distributed or not. This technique does require generating reports each time regardless of whether they will be sent, which may not be desirable if the job requires a lot of resources to run.
ReportWORQ Rest API
If a user is in a situation where they have a custom schedule and need to run their reports based on something that’s not typical, one option is use an external application, such as an IBM Planning Analytics TI Process or another automation tool, to determine if a job should be executed and then running the job through the ReportWORQ Rest API. To set up running a job with the ReportWORQ API, simply follow the documentation here to enable the API and to make the call to run a job. If you are already using IBM Planning Analytics Turbo Integrator process, ReportWORQ provides a sample TI Process to perform this action.
Please feel free to reach out to support@reportworq.com with any questions on scheduling jobs with ReportWORQ and thank you for visiting our forum!