E-mailing Reports only when there is data.

[csaluja]

Hi All,

I have the following requirement. Say there is a report X which is scheduled to run every day at 9.00 AM and in its advanced properties we have specified to Save the report and E-mail it to a distribution list.
Now what I want here is that this report should not be e-mailed if there is no data returned by the report i.e. when the report is blank it should not be emailed at all.

Please let me know your suggestions.

Regards.

[almeids]

My suggestion is that you mail the empty report (preferably with a message saying "No data today"), otherwise how will the recipient know if there was no data, a report failure, or a delivery problem?

[csaluja]

Almeids,

Ok. The objective of the report is to identify some new records that need to be updated by this person to whom this report is mailed.
Now he requires that he should be notified only when there is new data to be updated, otherwise not. It clutters his mailbox as he gets so many other mails.

Will wait for your reply.

Regards,
CS.

[almeids]

I still stick to my original suggestion as the process you are looking to implement is not failsafe.  However, if your end user can not understand this and is willing not to perform some necessary business function in the event of a reporting problem, you have 2 options:
(1) Do not time-schedule the report, use an external event trigger instead.  Set up something which checks to see if there is any data for the report and only triggers it if so.  This implies 2 points of maintenance for any business logic (filters) used to select these records
OR
(2) Do something with the SDK...I can't tell you what, but that's the generic answer to anything which lies outside of the built-in functionality.

[MFGF]

Hi,

I guess since you're posting to the ReportNet forum, that's the product you have?  On the slim chance that's not the case and you have Cognos 8, you can achieve this using an Event Studio agent which looks for new records to appear then instigates an email task to send the report.

Probably not helpful to you at all, unless you upgrade to Cognos 8...

Regards,

MF.