Report Subscriptions - Genius CE & Enterprise

Report subscription is an easy way for the interested parties to receive a specific report from the system without needing to log in or even having an account. The report would be emailed to the recipient based on the schedule defined by the subscription creator.

The easiest approach to use is to subscribe to the report created with the help of the Report builder. More complex reports (from the Query Builder) can also have subscriptions, but they have limitations covered further.

Creating a subscription

All the created subscription are listed in the Reports > Subscription area, where the admin can view the name, periodicity, recipients and the actual report used. If any changes are required to the current list, the edit button allows to modify the subscription information or fully delete it.  

To create a new subscription, follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to Reports > [Dynamic Reports] – ‘Query Builder’ or ‘Run Report’ menus. If this option is missing, check the overall role permissions. By default, super-admins have access to this menu.
2. Locate the report that requires a subscription and copy the back-end query:
   • In the Query Builder – select the report by using a search bar in the drop-down menu.
     1. Run report to verify the data results.
     2. Go back to the Report information block, highlight and copy the full query into the clipboard or a notepad.
   • In the Report Builder open the drop-down menu of the available reports and select the report to preview. Use the search bar to help you find it faster.
     1. Once report is selected, click on ‘Run Report’ to verify that the data is flowing as expected and results are properly shown.
     2. Next to the ‘Select a report’ drop-down menu at the top, locate the link that says ‘Report Details’. The details will contain Subtitle and Description (if defined). It will also contain the query behind the report.
   • Copy the query fully, starting with the word SELECT into the notepad or clipboard

3. Having the query copied into the clipboard, navigate to Administration > Integrations > Outbound Subscriptions. Locate the “Add new subscription” link right below the search criteria block and click on it.
4. Paste your copied query into the ‘Template area’.
   1. Give the new subscription a name.
   2. Under Periodicity – choose how often the report will be sent out. ‘Once’, means that it will only be triggered one time and subscription will be deleted right after. Other options will follow the specified rule.
   3. In the “Recipients” field enter email(s) of those who should be receiving the report. Separate emails by comma, e.g. [e-mail], [e-mail].
   4. Save changes

Important note: if the query contains a variable starting with the @ ‘at’ symbol, such subscription will not return any report results. The email will say “There is no data to be displayed in this report.” To remedy this, please follow the directions in this article.

Subscription administrative settings

The Job - by default every subscription is checked on once a day. The Subscription jobs are scripts that run on the backend of the system and validate all the subscription emails that need to be fired.

1. An admin can navigate to the Administration > Edit Jobs area an locate the job information.
2. By clicking on the pencil icon, an admin can manage the time when the job is checking all the subscriptions, change the timezone or deactivate the job and stop all the subscriptions from being sent out.
3. By clicking on ‘Run Now’ button, an admin can initiate the send-out of the emails manually. All the subscriptions will be checked for periodicity and corresponding emails will be generated.

The sender - by default the sender of the subscription is the same as defined in the Parameters under the SUPPORT_EMAIL. An admin can update the support email at any time, but this will affect all the other modules where the support email can also be used.

The accompanying text - every subscription email has short explanation added to the email. The text can be universally changed by the admin in the Administration > Parameters under SUBSCRIPTION.WORDING. 

Subscription Report format

The subscription email is coming with the link to download the report. The reports download in the .csv format and can be opened with any compatible software.

If the logs show that the report was sent, but it has not been delivered to the recipient, checking spam filters or junk mail is the next step.

With the additional customization, the subscription can be adjusted to send out the file attachment instead of the link.

Steps for creating a periodic email or SFTP report (through Subscriptions):

• Activate the Jobs that help run email reports.
  • Go to “Edit Jobs”
  • “Subscriptions.Create” – this job creates the subscriptions that need to be sent out on a certain frequency.
  • “Subscriptions.Send” – this job sends out the subscriptions that need to be sent out on a certain frequency.
  • Please note that increasing the frequency of the above two jobs may affect the latency of your instance.
  • Please note that, instead of waiting on the frequency of these jobs, an admin user may also press the play button to the left of them to immediately run them. You would always want to run the “Subscriptions.Create” job prior to the “Subscriptions.Send” job. Doing so will take you to the Hangfire dashboard to see a confirmation of the job.
• Build an email or SFTP report through Outbound Subscriptions
  • Go to Administration --> Integrations --> Outbound Subscriptions
  • Click “Add new subscription.”
    • Name it whatever you would like.
    • Choose the periodicity.
    • Select Email or SFTP
    • Add relevant recipient(s)
    • If SFTP, you will need a SFTP setup in your Genius CE or Enterprise instance.
    • Select the report you wish to send OR paste in a SQL query.
      • Please note that any custom report you create in your Genius CE or Enterprise instance should be available in the list of available reports.