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Email a report on a schedule

Send a report to up to ten people by email every week or month, as CSV or PDF, run it on demand and see why a send failed.

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OwnerAdministrator
Hosting
Any hosting
Devices
Web browser
Business
All businesses

Checked against Pop Dispatch 0.1.0

Choose a report, choose the people and Pop Dispatch emails it on the day you pick, every week or every month. Each send is listed, so you can see what arrived and why anything failed.

Before you start #

Steps #

  1. Open Settings and choose "Scheduled reports". The list "Scheduled reports" shows each schedule with Name, Report, When, Recipients, Format and a switch for On. When there are none it says "No reports are scheduled."
  2. In the form "Add a scheduled report", type a Name.
  3. Choose the Report from the list.
  4. Choose "How often": "Every week" or "Every month". For weekly choose the "Day of the week", Monday to Sunday. For monthly choose the "Day of the month", 1 to 28.
  5. Choose the Format: CSV or PDF.
  6. Type the Recipients: up to 10 email addresses, one on each line or separated by commas.
  7. Leave "Send on schedule" ticked, then choose "Add schedule". A message says "The schedule is added."
  8. To send one now, choose "Run now" on its row. A message says how many recipients it ran for.
  9. To see what happened, choose "Sends" on its row. The table "Sends of" the schedule shows Period, To, Status (Waiting, Sent or Failed), Tries, Next try, Last problem and Sent.
  10. To pause a schedule, untick its switch. To delete it, choose "Remove" and confirm. Its past sends are removed too.

When a send fails #

A failed send is tried again after 15 minutes, then after 1 hour, then after 6 hours. After that it stops and the Status stays Failed. The "Last problem" column says why. The most common reason is that mail needs setting up. Set it up in Settings, then choose "Run now" to send again.

What is sent #

  • A weekly report covers the week before the send day. A monthly report covers the month before.
  • Each period is sent once per recipient. A schedule missed while the server was off fires on its next check.
  • Each email carries the report as an attachment named with the report and the dates.
Technical details
  • Routes: GET and POST /report-schedules, PATCH and DELETE /report-schedules/:id, POST /report-schedules/:id/run-now, GET /report-schedules/:id/deliveries (owner and manager).
  • The server checks schedules every five minutes, claims each period once, makes one delivery per recipient and builds the report once per period.
  • The retry timetable is 15 minutes, 1 hour and 6 hours.
  • Reports come from the same working as the Reports page, so figures match.

If something goes wrong #

  • "Write a name and at least one email address.": fill in both.
  • "recipients needs from 1 to 10 email addresses.": remove addresses until ten or fewer remain.
  • Status Failed with "Mail needs setting up. Enter the mail server and the from address in Settings first.": set up mail, then choose "Run now".
  • "There is no period to send yet.": the schedule has no finished period yet. Try again after its first day.