Report Scheduler Admin Screen

The Reports Schedule feature allows your organization to customize an email notification beyond what is available in the standard set of email notifications. By customizing scheduled reports, admins may gather and filter data, then notify just the affected users via email. 

For example:

• Use the Approval Reminder schedule to regularly remind users to approve expenses.
• Use the Unpaid Firm-Paid Items schedule to remind users they have credit card transactions they haven't used yet.

On the Reports Scheduler screen, admins may view scheduled reports, edit each report’s opt-out list of users/groups, and generate scheduled reports immediately. The Reports Scheduler also allows you to manage which scheduled reports you receive.

Each report will be delivered at a predetermined time to all users in the company, except those who are on the opt-out list.

Depending on your organization's configuration, you may also be able to use Reports Schedule to schedule automatic exports of expenses and invoices.

See Available Scheduled Reports for a list of reports that can be scheduled.

Configuring Access to Reports Scheduler

Admins who will be permitted to make changes through Reports Schedule will need to be configured as Reports Schedule administrators through security rules.

1. Click Security > Access Permissions and select the policy that governs administrator access to the Report Scheduler. For details, see People Admin Screen.

2. Use the check boxes to select which reports administrators governed by that policy will see.

3. The check boxes also allow you to determine which specific actions admins may take, including the ability to add and edit configured reports and to add and/or delete notification exclusions to manage whether specific users receive notifications.

View Report Schedules

1. From the Admin Menu, click TRACKING NOTIFICATIONS > REPORT SCHEDULER.

2. Click the desired report in the list to view its current schedules. The report will run according to the schedule displayed in the Configured Reports section.

• Status: Shows whether the report schedule is active. A green oval with the white circle on the right indicates that the schedule is on. Reports with no Status toggle are configured to run on-demand only.
• Filters: Shows which filters have been applied to that schedule.
• Schedule: Shows how often that schedule runs or if it is on-demand only.

In the example below, the active Unapproved Items report schedule includes all items older than 48 hours and will run every Monday at 12:03am UTC.

Schedule a Report for Email

To schedule a report, select the report name in the list and click ADD CONFIGURED REPORT. See Available Scheduled Reports for a list of all available reports and their filters.

2. Scheduled reports use filters to allow you to filter the results that will appear in the scheduled report.

• Static filters: Available on all scheduled reports as the first window during report editing or creation.
• In the example below, the Invoice Approval Reminder report includes a filter called “Item Age” with a value of 72, indicating that it includes all invoices that have been pending approval for at least 72 hours.

• Dynamic filters: Available only on manually scheduled reports, these appear after clicking RUN NOW.

• For example, the Approval Reminder report can be filtered to show only one approver’s reminders and/or all expenses created by a single expense owner. In the option pictured below, only reports created by Dan and awaiting Anne’s approval will appear on the report.

  

See Available Scheduled Reports for additional details on each report and the filter values that may be changed.

3. The next pop up screen allows you to determine how often the schedule will run. You can schedule reports to run as frequently as hourly and as infrequently as monthly, with numerous options in between:

• Hourly
• Daily (including Sat/Sun)
• Every other business day (Mon, Wed, Fri, Tue, Thurs)
• Mon/Wed/Fri
• Mon/Fri
• Weekly
• Bi-weekly
• Monthly on the 1st, 15th, 20th, or last day

If necessary, multiple schedules may be run simultaneously in order to create the desired frequency.

With the exception of the Hourly parameter, all scheduled reports that should be sent automatically require you to input the time of day the notification should be sent. The time must be provided in military format (e.g., 23:00) according to UTC time.

• To convert from PST (or PDT) to UTC, add 8 hours (or 7 hours)
• To convert from MST (or MDT) to UTC, add 7 hours (or 6 hours)
• To convert from CST (or CDT) to UTC, add 6 hours (or 5 hours)
• To convert from EST (or EDT) to UTC, add 5 hours (or 4 hours)

To see examples of common schedules, see Common Schedule Intervals and Parameters, below.

In this example, the schedule will run once per week on Mondays, at 8:00pm UTC.

Or, if a scheduled report should only be run manually, type NONE in the schedule field.

4. Click SAVE, then find the report schedule in the list of Configured Reports and toggle its status to “On” by clicking the oval so that it turns green, with the white circle on the right.

Common Schedule Intervals and Parameters

Below are some common schedule intervals and the parameters you must enter in order to achieve them.

• Note that the text is case- and space-sensitive and should be entered exactly as displayed here.

* Weekday abbreviations are Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat and Sun

To set up certain schedules that run at different times of day or day of the week, you will need to create multiple separate schedules to run concurrently.

• For example, if you wish to have a report run multiple times per week but at different times on each day, you will need to create a schedule for each day and time combination.

For help creating more complex schedules, contact us via the Chrome River Help Desk.

Daylight Saving Time Change and Schedules

Customers affected by the beginning and end of US Daylight Saving Time will want to change the times of their automatic exports and scheduled emails accordingly.

Spring

The current time listed on the schedules needs to be adjusted down 1 hour. For example, if the scheduled time is 23:00, it should be adjusted to 22:00. If the specific entry has already processed today, you will need to make the time change, turn off the schedule, and then turn it back on. If the specific entry has not yet processed today, making the time change is the only action required.

Fall

The current time listed on the schedules needs to be adjusted up 1 hour. For example, if the scheduled time is 22:00, it should be adjusted to 23:00. If the specific entry has already processed today, you will need to make the time change, turn off the schedule, and then turn it back on. If the specific entry has not yet processed today, making the time change is the only action required.

Edit a Report Schedule

1. Hover over the schedule to display the EDIT and RUN NOW buttons. Click EDIT.

2. Follow the instructions under Add a Report Schedule, above, to make changes.

3. If the schedule has already processed today, you will need to click the toggle to turn off the schedule and then turn it back on to have the change take effect immediately. Otherwise, it will take effect on the second run following the change.

Re-Send or Run a Scheduled Report Manually

To generate a report immediately—such as re-sending an approval email—first select the type of report in the list.

Now hover over the desired schedule in the Configured Reports list and click RUN NOW. This is also the only way to use dynamic filters on scheduled reports that have them. The report will be generated and sent to all users who have not opted out.

If a report should only be run manually, with no Status toggle appearing in the Configured Reports list, click EDIT, advance to the scheduling pane, and type NONE in the schedule field. Then click SAVE.

Notification Exclusions: Managing Opt-Out Settings

The Notification Exclusions section of the Reports Schedule admin shows the list of users/groups who are eligible to opt out of scheduled report notifications. If this section is blank, all users in your company will be able to opt out. Once you enter an individual or a group in the Notification Exclusions section, no users will be able to change their subscription settings unless they are on the list.

1. To add users or groups to the opt-out list, click ADD NOTIFICATION EXCLUSION.

2. Use the search boxes to select the desired role, entity type and entity, then click the green checkmark.

3. To remove users or groups from the opt-out list, click the trash can icon.

Safety Net

Once you have set up the desired report and schedule, you will need to open a case with the Chrome River Help Desk to submit a "safety net" email address at which your company will be alerted (via bounced emails) in the unlikely event that every user unsubscribes to the scheduled notification.

Any valid email address is eligible, and it does not have to match that of a Chrome River user. The only condition is that the person at that address be able to recognize the situation and determine whether users will need to resubscribe themselves.

Add a Custom Link to Scheduled Report Emails

Chrome River EXPENSE customers who opt for HTML-formatted Scheduled Report notification emails have the option of providing a custom link to the Chrome River app at the bottom of each message. Note that each user's email preference must be set to HTML in the People Admin Screen in order to receive an email with this link.

1. Click ADMIN SETTINGS > MASTER DATA > ENTITIES.

2. Click the blue + button to the right of "Entity Types."

3. Enter the following information to create a new entity type:

• Name: Scheduled Reports
• Description: Scheduled Report Notifications
• Code: Scheduled_Reports

4. If your organization sends in an Entity Type data feed, it will overwrite your current entity types and all the associated entities. To prevent specific entity types from being overwritten, click the Do Not Delete (from feed) check box for each entity type.

• In the "Would you like to update all the DND flags for all belonging to this Entity Type to match your DND selection at the Entity Type level?" pop-up box, select APPLY.

5. Check the LOAD ON LOGIN check box.

6. Click SAVE.

7. Now click the blue plus button in the Entities section.

8. Enter the following information to create a new entity:

• Name: Instructions URL
• Code: Instructions_URL
• Extra Data 1: https://app.chromeriver.com/

9. Check Do Not Delete (from feed) and click SAVE.

10. A link will now appear at the bottom of every HTML Scheduled Report notification email. The text of the sentence will be determined by the type of Scheduled Report. The example below shows the link for the Unapproved Items Reminder email.

Add Reports to Report Scheduler Admin Screen

If additional reports are available, administrators with appropriate permissions may add more reports to the list of those able to be scheduled.

1. Click the blue plus button.

2. Select the desired report from the drop-down list and click ADD.