Report Bursting

Summary

Report Bursting is where you process a report that has been personalized for one recipient and reprocess for other recipients. In some report delivery methods this is called a multirun.

The Report bursting form is where you control the Report Bursting Process.  You select one report and process it for a parameter value and send to a destination, and then run it again for another customer and send to them.  You can also set other parameter values for the bursting run, and create a personalized message and file name for each email message.

The report bursting main form settings can be saved in a BWF (Bursting Work File) but as bursting is also available in the report scheduler, the same form will display the settings for a scheduled report and save the settings in the schedule.xml file.

The details about each run of the burst is saved in a txt or csv file. The default extension for this detail file is a BST (Burst) file, but any file extension is acceptable. You can modify the contents of this file with a text file editor, excel or a report that uses our Schedule Management UFL.

Processing

Click the top "Save" button to save all the information on the form. This will update the burst files and save the other fields in your local windows registry for when you return to this form.

"Select All" or "Select Range" will control which items are processed. If "Select Range" you need to specify the start and end of the range of items to process.  Note the first item is 0.

Click "Run Now" to start the processing of the Bursting. The current value will appear in the box as each report is processed. 

You can click "Pause" to temporarily halt the bursting run. You can then resume from that point.

Fields on the form

In the form above, the following fields need to have a value

• Report File: Enter the name of the Crystal Report you want to process with the burst run. There is a [...] browse button beside that field to let you search for the file
• Detail File: The burst file is a text file that contains the information needed to control the bursting run. By default this is the .bst equivalent of the Report File (above), but you can use this mechanism to have one burst file control several reports. There is a [...] browse button to let you search for the file
• Tag File: This may be left blank. The Tag file is an XML file that is allocated to the Report File (above) and may be used to store Tag fields you can use in the Message, Subject and/or file name. A tag field of {$Name} will look in the tag file for the XML tag labeled "Name" and use that value.
• Sender:  If this is blank, the default sender for the system is used.  You can select an alternate sender, by entering a valid email address in this field.  You can also use the a tag file value, and the report can modify that tag field with each item
• Parameter: is used to select the parameter to control the bursting run. The Report File must have at least one parameter. You then change the value of the parameter and select a different destination for that new value.
• Other Parameters: Is used to select values for the other parameters in the report. If there is only one parameter in the report this will be left blank. Remember to [Save] each value for each parameter.
• The box on the bottom left will display the values to be used in the bursting run. You can select a value and the Fields will show the value for that run:
• Value is the Value of the Parameter. This must match the type of the parameter.
• Output To lets you select Disk, Email or Printer. Other destinations will be available in future versions.
• Format lets you select the format of the file to attach to the message. you can select Acrobat file, Excel, Rich Text, etc.
• Email to will let you enter the destination address of that bursting run. If you have selected Output to of "Disk", this will be the file name to save the output to.
• Subject: is the subject you wish to see on the email message.
• Standard Message is the message you want to send in the email. You can use any of the Field Processing options in the message.
• File Name: is the name you want the bursting run to create for the processing run. You can use any Field Processing options in the file name. The name must be a valid file. It can include a path name or a file share.
• Other File Attachments: You can attach other files to each email.  You could use this for company newsletters, special invitations or other documents you wish to send.  This is ignored for printer or disk items.

Bursting File

The bursting run is controlled by a bursting detail file. This is similar format to the txt file used in Chelsea Technologies multirun feature of their cViewMANAGER and cViewSERVER report schedulers. You can edit this file manually using a text editor like Notepad, but you must maintain the same format on each line. Any lines without the correct number of columns or with invalid entries will be ignored during processing of the bursting run.

The burst file is a simple text format with 6 columns of values. The columns are separated by commas and have optional double quotes around each columns.  The values in each column cannot include any commas or double quotes.

The columns are as follows:

• Parameter Name: Must be in the format {?ParameterName}
• Parameter Value: see the section below for details on how to enter parameter values.
• Destination: Can be EMail, Disk or Printer
• Format (Ignored for Printer). Current Supports Crystal Report, RPTR Locked Crystal Report, Acrobat File, Excel, Excel Record, Excel Workbook, Rich Text, Editable Rich text, Text File, CSV File, Tab File, HTML Document, DHTML Document, MS Word and XML)
• Location: For a Printer Destination, this is the printer name, for a Disk Destination, this is a file name and for Email, this is the email address to send it to.
• Subject: For Email message only, you can control the subject of the message with this column.

CrystalKiwi has developed a Schedule Management User Function Library that lets you design a report to control the values in the Burst File.

Further details on this product are here

Parameter Value Formats

String, number and currency values are easy to enter into any field where a parameter value is required.  Numbers can have a decimal point, but no commas or currency signs.

Strings cannot include a comma or tilde character as these are reserved for other uses.

Date fields are entered in universal numeric format of yyyy/MM/dd or Date Time Values of yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm.  24 Hour clock values for hours.  Second values are not currently supported.

Multiple values can be entered if the parameter supports this. Use a pipe character (|) to separate each value.

A Range is identified using a tilde (~) to separate the two values: for example for a date range for February 2013 use "2013/02/01~2013/02/28"

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