Running a iterations of a report through a preset list of prompts

[former_member609300]

Hi Everyone,

I have a report created that needs to be distributed to a number of different locations. The report is currently set-up with a location ID prompt that filters all of the data to the appropriate location.

This works well if you want to generate a one-off report and you manually type in the location ID.

My problem is that I have approximately 400 locations that need to receive their report on a weekly schedule - I don't have the time to manually enter each report and then send it to them (i'm using Business Objects for the distribution).

Is there a way for me to create a report (either in Business objects or Crystal Reports) where it will run an individual report for every location in a list that I have created. I have the ability to generate the list of locations either from a database call or I can simply upload a list of all locations somewhere (it's a static list).

This is currently causing me to do a great deal of manual work so any help would be hugely appreciated.

Regards,

Liam

[DellSC · Accepted solution]

Since you're using the BI Platform, you need to look into using a Publication in BOBJ for this. You would create a Crystal report that has each location and it's email address, or a folder to where the instance will be exported (or FTP...). This will be used for "bursting" the report. Then you'll configure the publication to use that report and the original one, linking them by location. Finally, you configure the output format of the report (Excel, PDF, etc.) and how you want to deliver it using the information in the bursting report. You can then schedule the publication to run on a regular basis. I recommend scheduling it for off-hours when not a lot is running because publications tend to use a lot of resources.

-Dell

[former_member609300 · Accepted solution]

Thank you much Dell! That is a fantastic solution and has been working perfectly so far. Really appreciate the help - you have saved me a great deal of manual work