How to Create and Schedule a Report - editing

MSPbots offers a reporting feature that enables you to generate reports for sharing with important members of your organization. These reports are designed to facilitate data-driven decision-making and aid in monitoring your company or team's performance against key metrics. This page provides guidance on creating a report and configuring it to deliver relevant information to specific individuals based on a predefined schedule.

What's on this page

What are the benefits of using reports?

Reports are important tools for leaders when communicating critical information to clients and among teams. With the MSPbots app, you can create and send reports that contain summaries of historical data, metrics, and trends useful in decision-making, problem diagnosis, capacity planning, and overall performance improvement. You can share these reports externally with clients or internally within teams via scheduled reporting or manual PDF generation.

Relevant applications and permissions

You can set up dashboards for all MSPbots apps, BI packages, and applicable integrations. Only users with admin permissions can create dashboards and reports. If you don't have enough permissions, contact your administrator for help. `

How to create a report

Do the following to set up your report:

Open the MSPbots app as administrator.
Navigate to Dashboards on the menu and click the New Dashboard button.
In the Dashboard window, select Report.
When the Add New Dashboard window opens, do the following:
1. Enter your dashboard's name in the Name field.
2. Click the Role dropdown menu and select the roles that will have access to the dashboard.
3. Click the Tag dropdown menu and select one or multiple tags to label your new dashboard.
4. Next, provide a Description for your dashboard.
5. Click Continue. This opens the tab for your new dashboard.
When the tab for your new report opens, click Add Widget. This opens the Add Widget window.
Next, on the Add Widget window, click Widgets List and select the widgets to show in your report.

You can also click New to create new widgets to add to your report or click Slicer List to add slicers.
Click the Add Selected button when you're done with selecting widgets and slicers for your report. The selected widgets will now appear on the report you have just created.
Optional: If needed, modify your report's size and orientation. Click the Size dropdown menu to select A4 or letter, and click the Orientation dropdown menu to select portrait or landscape.
Click the Save Dashboard to save the settings.

The new report you have just created will now appear under My Dashboards.

What are the actions I can do on my report's page?

Adjust the settings - Click the Design button to modify the widget settings and to adjust the report's size, and orientation.
Edit the report's basic information when you click .
Refresh the data on your report - Click to refresh all widgets. Hovering over the refresh icon for two seconds will open the auto-refresh settings.
Widget Auto-refresh Rule
The following rules apply once the auto-refresh feature is enabled and the refresh interval is set:
- If the current time when you open the dashboard is equal to or later than the last refresh time plus the auto-refresh interval, then the page will refresh automatically. A new countdown will start from the current time.
  
  Example: The last refresh time is 9:00 and the auto-refresh interval is set to 5 minutes.
  If you access the dashboard at 9:08, it will automatically refresh once and start a new auto-refresh timer at 9:08.
- If you open the dashboard before the last refresh time plus the auto-refresh interval, the dashboard will not refresh. It will refresh automatically when the set interval is reached.
  
  Example: The last refresh time is 9:00 and the auto-refresh interval is set to 5 minutes.
  Using the same example, the dashboard will not refresh if you access it at 9:02, which is earlier than 9:00 and the set refresh at 5 minutes. If you stay on the page until 9:05, the dashboard will automatically refresh at 9:05. However, if you leave the page before 9:05, the last refresh time will remain at 9:00.
- The dashboard will follow the set auto-refresh interval while it is open, and the automatic page refresh will stop when the dashboard is closed.
Share your report - Click to share the report via shareable link, snapshot, and embedding.

For more information on sharing your report; refer to the following pages:
Delete your report by clicking .
Create a schedule for sending your report. Click the Schedule Report icon for this. Refer to the section on How to Create a Scheduled Report for guided instructions.
Export a PDF copy of your report. - Click to export the report in PDF format.

How to Create a Scheduled Report

You can configure reports to send according to a predefined schedule. Follow these steps:

Open the MSPbots app as administrator.
Navigate to Dashboards on the menu and open the report that needs to be configured for a new schedule.
Click the Schedule Report icon to access the Schedule Report page.
Next, click the +New button or the Create a New Schedule button. Both actions will open the New Schedule window.

Existing scheduled reports are found in the Scheduled tab like the example in the image below.
Enter a unique schedule name in the New Schedule window. The recipient's name will be used as the default Schedule Name if the field is left blank.

The default Delivery option is to send via email. There is no support for other options or customization at this time.
Go to the Email recipient(s) dropdown menu and select the emails of the individuals you want to send the report to. You can select multiple email addresses.
Next, scroll down and set the Frequency for sending the report.
- If needed, customize the time zone according to different locations and preferences worldwide.
- Select Advanced Scheduler for more configuration options on your report's frequency.
Move down to Attachment and select an option for your reporting requirement:
- Include PDF Attachment - Select this option to send your report in PDF format. This is the default selection.
- Include Shareable link - Select this option to automatically add the {{report_link}} token which will attach your dashboard's link to the email. The placeholder {{report_link}} represents the actual dashboard link.
Select the sender's email from the From dropdown list.
Then, type an appropriate subject in the Add a custom subject field, and click the add token icon. You can refer to the token descriptions below for guidance.
Token Descriptions
- {{recipient_company_name}} is for the recipient's company name.
- {{recipient_name}} is for the recipient's full name. Use first name and last name if the full name is not available.
- {{report_name}} is for the dashboard's name.
- {{report_owner_name}} is for the dashboard owner's name.
- {{report_owner_email}} is for the dashboard owner's email address.
- {{report_link}} is for the dashboard link.
- {{your_company_name}} is for the sender's company name. Select a token for the email subject from the list.
- If your PSA is selected, the values for {{recipient_company_name}} and {{recipient_name}} can be obtained from Autotask, ConnectWise, Kaseya, Syncro or Halo's contact data.
- If your PSA is not selected or the values for {{recipient_company_name}} and {{recipient_name}} cannot be obtained, set these values to null.
(Optional) Hide the email footer - Tick the Hide the email footer checkbox to hide the footer on the email.
Click Save to save the settings.
After successful creation, the Scheduled tab displays the following information.
- Report Name
- Last Sent Timestamp
- Frequency
- Next Scheduled Time
- Recipients
- Saved Slicer(s)
if you need to configure the schedule report, click onthe ellipsis button located on the right side. Here are the available actions when configuring the Scheduler:
- Edit - Click Edit to modify the information of the scheduled report. Once you're done, click Save.
- Send Now - Click Send Now to immediately send the scheduled report email to the recipients.
- Send To Me - Click Send To Me to send the scheduled report to your email. You can use this option to preview the report before sending it to clients or teams.
- Delete - You can delete the scheduled report by clicking Delete and confirming when prompted.
Other options:
- Send carbon copies or blind carbon copies of your report to individuals by clicking the CC or BCC links. You can also select multiple email addresses from these dropdown lists.
- Send filtered dashboard for the associated company of each recipient:
  - This option only appears when there's a slicer with QueryParams="Company" in the Dashboard.
  - If you check the option, scheduled reports will be sent with filters specific to the recipients' mapped company. In this case, you need to configure the PSA by selecting an option from the PSA dropdown menu. The available options are: Autotask, ConnectWise, Kaseya, Syncro, Halo.
(Optional) Save Slicer:
- This option only appears when there are slicers in the dashboard (excluding the "Company" Slicer).
- The default setting for the Save Slicer option is on. When it is turned on, the current slicer selection will be saved and applied to scheduled reports.
- The slicers displayed here are the ones you added when creating this dashboard. If you need to modify the slicers, please go to the page of this dashboard, click Design > Add Widget to add or delete slicers.
Click on Log to view the record of the schedule reports sent, including the following information.
- Status
- Report Name
- Sent Timestamp
- Recipients
- Saved Slicer(s)

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