Hi All,
I have raised a case with support, but wanted to post here in case someone has been in our position before.
We use Windows Server 2012 R2 remote desktop services. We have a single remote desktop server which we have assigned for scheduling JetReports, and the server uses User Profile Disks.
As we want to have a shared account, so that reports come from the same e-mail address, we can only have one user logged into this account at a time. Also, our users want a copy of the message to go into the sent items folder, so we are using Outlook to send messages rather than SMTP server.
Some issues we have seen, are that the AutoPilot.exe does not always end after a scheduled task is finished, preventing the next run from going. Another oddity, is that sometimes when we take over the session, we see Excel prompting us to select a printer to use. Once we select a printer, the scheduled task continues running.
My question(s):
Does anyone else use a shared account for sending reports?
Do you use remote desktop services or PCs?
How would you handle our situation to minimise these odd issues?
Many thanks for any advice you may have!
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Jet Reports Historic Posts Probably not very helpful, but we have a shared user account for running automated reports. We use a virtual PC, so only one user can be on it at a time, but from a practical perspective we've never had a problem with more people wanting to use it at once.
While I haven't noticed the specific problems you've mentioned, I do get odd occasions where it doesn't run for no apparent reason. It does feel like there ought to be a better way… -
Jet Reports Historic Posts Thanks for that Teresa.
I think a lot of our problems come from disconnecting from the remote desktop session. People want to log in, run a task then disconnect to carry on with other work.
Proving to be a bit of an issue for us with the need for a shared account. If each user sent stuff individually, it wouldn't really be an issue :( -
Jet Reports Historic Posts While I don't have your exact setup, what I do have is the following: 1 win 7 PC, 4 user profiles logged in at the same time. I RDP to this PC from my own PC. Office 2013 CTR installed, all latest updates, along with latest Jet Essentials. Never had an issue with RDP interfering with scheduled reports running or to be run. Note that I have some reports running every <10 mins, and have a total of 30+ reports, most of which run at night.
One small suggestion I would make is have an email rule on your Exchange server that forwards outbound Jet Reports emails back to the users in question, and then have a rule in each of their Outlook accounts to put these emails into the Sent Items instead of the Inbox - it's how I deal with this very issue (we use Office 365's Exchange Online server and OWA client. Try to avoid using Outlook and force yourself to use SMTP as much as possible! It's very easy with a little planning!
If you are using the Task Scheduler with Autopilot to sent Jet Reports emails, then these are done with the Windows account assigned to the task; irrespective of who is actually remotely logged into the server, the tasks should still run.
(One thought that just springs to mind is if your users themselves email Jet Reports from their own accounts on their own PCs? If not, why don't you set up the same SMTP settings on each user's PC?)
(Another way to handle the "same email address" issue is to write a rule on your server so that outbound emails from the respective with a particular word or phrase in the subject and/or body (I use "Jet Scheduler") have the From: part of the header record rewritten to be that of the email address you wish to use. This would probably have to go to your email server administrator, as it's not an easy thing to do!)
As for Autopilot not automatically ending - I came across this issue a lot as well. A few suggestions:
Make your report as *lean* as possible - minimise use of formatting - especially colours.
Run the report from the Task Scheduler with the Autopilot /D option set - this will help you see the report run, and if there are any errors showing, that's the reason why.
If the report runs fine with /D set, the change it to /L and log EVERYTHING. Very useful log!
At the end of the day, I have batch files that kill Autopilot, Excel and JetFrontServer, just in case that there are any straggling tasks running. As I said: 30+ reports, most run each weekday night, PC is rebooted once a month for Windows, Office and Jet Reports updates. That's how I handle it.
!!!!!!!!!!! Another possibility that I have just tested but again my environment is different to yours: on each PC use MMC to add a new Task Scheduler snap-in to a new console window, pointing to at "Another computer" - i.e. your server, with "Connect as other user" ticked and enter your shared account details. !!!!!!!!!!!!!
They can then run the tasks on the server from their PCs without the need for RDP. I would STRONGLY recommend this method!!!!
Note: this is heavily dependent on the fact that the server and PC Windows firewalls allow the PC to communicate with the server using the snap-ins, so you might need to speak to your sysadmin or IT guru.
And I'd still use the /L and /D options mentioned above to clean up your reports.
DISCLAIMER: Again, I don't know your environment, so please be careful with security: as in who has access to run what!
I hope that I have been of some help!
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