Category: Email

Categories
Crystal Reports Email Ripplestone Ripplestone Tips Tutorial

How to Use the Send To & Email To Feature

When a user runs a Crystal Report from the home page of Ripplestone, the report is displayed within the users web browser.  They have the option to manually save the report by exporting the report output to a file or they can print the report.  But if they would like the report saved to a file everytime the report is run they can take advantage of the Send To feature.

The Send To feature is used to either create and save a file of the report or to email a copy of the report via email. This action will be performed each time the report is run on demand fom the home page of Ripplestone.

This can be useful when you need a physical copy of the report or another system will be looking for a copy of the report. Perhaps in an Excel or CSV format.

SendTo

Export to a File

The Export to a file section allows you to select the file type to be saved.  The available formats are:

  • pdf
  • Excel
  • Word
  • RTF
  • CSV
  • Text
  • Tab Separated
  • Crystal Report

The location for the file can be on the local Ripplestone server or on another server using a UNC style path. You also have the option of selecting a pre-defined location from the drop down. These can be setup in the Saved File Locations page. The file name can be any valid file name and can also use the following tokens to change the name at runtime.

  • [Date] – Formats the date in yyyy_MM_dd
  • [DateTime] – Formats the date in yyyy_MM_dd hhmmss
  • [Date:] – Allows you to enter the date and time in a custom format
  • [FileName] – Uses the document file name without the extension
  • [Title] – Uses the title of the document
  • [DocID] – Uses the internal ID for this document
  • [ParameterX] – Uses the value of the parameter that was entered when the report is run. Replace the X with a number.

There are two options for what to do if the file already exists.  You can select to have the file replaced if there is a file with the same name already in the folder; or you have the option to append a number to the end of the file name.

Send to Email

The Send to Email section allows you to have a copy of the report emailed to one or more people. If using multiple email addresses separate them with a semi-colon.

The from address needs to be a valid email address for most SMTP servers.

Categories
Crystal Reports Email Ripplestone Scheduler

Using External Parameters for a Scheduled Crystal Report

When running a scheduled Crystal Report in Ripplestone that has at least one parameter, there are times when the list of parameters values is large or comes from a changing source of values.

With Ripplestone you can use this external list of parameter values to burst the report.  The scheduled report will run the report once for each set of parameters and optionally use an email address to send the report via email.

Below is an example of how to use the external parameters bursting feature to send a yearly sales report using a parameter to filter the report by country and emailing each report to an email address.

To start you need to create a Database Connection to the data source.  In Ripplestone, the database connection page is a centralized location to create the information needed to connect to a data source.  It is used by reports, dynamic parameters and external parameters to open and read data.

Create a new database connection with the Connection Type of Dynamic Pick List.  The example below is getting the parameter data from SQL Server from a database called ExternalParams.  You will also need a valid User ID and Password to connect to the data source.

image

 

From a scheduled report, go to the External Parameters tab. 

Start by enabling the feature with the checkbox at the top.

Select the database connection created above and add the SQL statement to select the fields that contain the data needed for the report’s parameters and the email address if sending the report via email.

In the example below, the report is getting data from a view called vwGetCountries.  It needs the fields Country and Email; the Country field will be used for the first parameter in the report and the Email field will be used to send the report to the email address(es) contained in the field.  If more than one email address is in the field separate them with a semi-colon.

The Test link can be used to ensure that the connection works and that the data retrieved is correct.  In the example below, it returns three countries.

The mapping section is where you can assign the fields to the reports parameters and to the email address.

image

Note: If you are using an email address to send the report, you will also need to enable the Email feature and fill in the From, To and Subject lines.  The To field will be replaced by the data from the external source.

image

 

After setting everything up, the report will run at the scheduled time and run once for each record found in the data source.  The report will be saved into the report’s history and email the report, using the email address stored in the data source.

Categories
Email Ripplestone Ripplestone Tips

Changing the Ripplestone SMTP Mail Server

The default configuration of Ripplestone uses an SMTP server that is hosted by Ripplestone. This will work for most users, but can be changed to use a different SMTP server or corporate mail server like Microsoft Exchange.

The web site and the scheduler both have their own configuration files that will need to be changed.

Web Site:

The web site configuration file is the web.config located in the C:SitesRipplestone folder

Scheduler:

The scheduler configuration file is the RSScheduler.exe.config located in the C:SitesRipplestonebin folder

Both files have the same section that will need to be updated. Below is the section with the default settings. The line starting with <network host= is the line that will need to be updated. The host will change to be your SMTP server or Exchange server; it can either be the URL, Name or IP Address. If you do not need a user name and password you can remove those fields from the line.

After the changes have been made you will need to restart the scheduler service for the changes to read. The website will restart the next time a user uses the Ripplestone application.

<system.net>
    <mailSettings>
        <smtp deliveryMethod="Network" from="support@ripplestone.net">
    <network host="smtp.1and1.com" userName="emailsender@ripplestone.com" password="rs!email" port="25"/>
        </smtp>
    </mailSettings>
</system.net>

.csharpcode, .csharpcode pre
{
font-size: small;
color: black;
font-family: consolas, “Courier New”, courier, monospace;
background-color: #ffffff;
/*white-space: pre;*/
}
.csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; }
.csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; }
.csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; }
.csharpcode .str { color: #006080; }
.csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; }
.csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; }
.csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; }
.csharpcode .html { color: #800000; }
.csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; }
.csharpcode .alt
{
background-color: #f4f4f4;
width: 100%;
margin: 0em;
}
.csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; }