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Start one report after another

Jet Reports Historic Posts

August 02, 2011 09:26

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Hello,

I hope someone can help me: is there any possibility to start a report after another one has terminated without using the scheduler?
(Having JetReports running on terminal server users don't have permission to create new tasks.)

Greetings Cat

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4 comments

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  Jet Reports Historic Posts August 02, 2011 15:08

  Hi Cat,
  
  You could use AutoPilot (which is what the Scheduler itself uses but it doesn't require the Scheduler). AutoPilot.exe is basically a command line interface for running reports. You could create a windows batch file which just had a single AutoPilot command line for each report you wanted to run. It might look something like this:
  
  "C:\Program Files\JetReports\AutoPilot.exe" /i "D:\JetReports\Report1.xlsx" /o "D:\JetReports\Output\Report1.xlsx"
  "C:\Program Files\JetReports\AutoPilot.exe" /i "D:\JetReports\Report2.xlsx" /o "D:\JetReports\Output\Report2.xlsx"
  
  This batch file would run Report1 and save it to D:\JetReports\Output and then run Report 2 and save it to the same place. Both reports would get run silently so you wouldn't see the Excel windows at all. AutoPilot has lots of other command line options which you can see if you look in the Jet Reports documentation. Does this help?
  
  Regards,
  Hughes

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  Jet Reports Historic Posts August 03, 2011 06:07

  Hi Hughes,
  
  Thanks for your answer, sounds like a good possibility, but it's not exactly what I expected, because the user can't (easily) set any options or filters.
  
  Using the scheduler, you are able to define an Excel named range to create and run a batch file. It would be fine, if you could do this also bei starting a report - to define some "batch-range" and by running the report this "batch-range" is used to create and run the batch file.
  
  E.g. we have reports needed for multiple companies. But there is no specific date (like first/last of month, …) they have to be started. Therefore it's not possible to schedule them on a regular basis and the user has to start the report about 15 times.
  
  Sorry, my English isn't so good, I hope you get the point.
  
  Regards,
  Cat

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  Jet Reports Historic Posts August 03, 2011 14:27

  Hi Cat,
  
  So I probably didn't make this clear enough. Anything you can do with the Scheduler you can do with AutoPilot. You can set filter values in the Scheduler by creating named ranges in your report, so you can do the same thing in AutoPilot. All that the scheduler does is create a windows scheduled task which calls AutoPilot.exe with the appropriate command line parameters. You can actually open the Windows Scheduled Tasks and look at the tasks created by the Jet Scheduler and see what command line parameters they use. These command line parameters are also documented in the Jet Reports documentation.
  
  You mentioned defining a batch range in a report which runs other reports using AutoPilot and you can also easily do this with the /X argument of AutoPilot. So you can create a batch file (a text file with the .bat extension) with the following AutoPilot command line:
  
  "C:\Program Files\JetReports\AutoPilot.exe" /i "D:\JetReports\BatchReport.xlsx" /o "D:\JetReports\Output\BatchReport.xlsx" /X "BatchRange"
  
  Then you create the report BatchReport.xlsx and in it you define a named range called BatchRange which consists of AutoPilot commands to run other reports. This gives you to the power to use Jet to replicate your AutoPilot commands or to allow a user to easily set option values in the BatchReport.xlsx without editing the batch file itself. Does this make sense to you?
  
  Regards,
  Hughes

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  Jet Reports Historic Posts August 11, 2011 15:32

  Hi Hughes,
  
  Thanks again and I have to think about it once more, but probably that makes sense. I have to try. :-)
  
  Regards,
  cat