FAQs: Automatic Emailing and Printing of Finished Reports

This FAQ topic gives information about automatically emailing finished reports to designated staff members and printing finished reports. For information about automatically emailing notices to patrons and printing paper notices when notice type reports run, refer to the FAQs: Automatic Emailing and Printing of Notices topic.

• How do I set up WorkFlows to automatically email finished reports to one or more staff members?
• How do I set up WorkFlows to automatically print finished reports?
• Library staff are not receiving emailed reports. What could be going wrong?
• Finished reports are not printing automatically. What could be going wrong?

How do I set up WorkFlows to automatically email finished reports to one or more staff members?

WorkFlows can be configured as follows to automatically email a report to one or more users when the report finishes.

To automatically email a report

1 On the Configuration toolbar, and click the Module Configuration wizard group.
2 Click the Report Policy wizard.
3 Make sure the Allow Direct Email check box is selected.
4 If you want to include the library’s email address on the emailed report, select the Allow Sender’s Email Address check box.
5 Click Save.
6 If you want the report owner to be notified when the finished report is emailed, go to the Reports toolbar, and click the Report Session wizard. Under Setup & Schedule, select the Notify Owner When Report is Finished check box. Click OK to close the report session properties window.
7 When you schedule a report, select the Email to Individual(s) check box under Printing/Distribution in the Schedule window. Use the Email Addresses gadget to select addresses. The Email to Individual(s) field has a limit of 256 characters, including separators between email addresses. When you select the Email to Individual(s) check box, the entire report log and/or results are sent to the email address or list of email addresses. If you are sending a notice type report, email addresses will receive the entire report, including all notices generated by the report.
8 Make sure the Format check box adjacent to the Email to Individual(s) check box is selected so the emailed report will appear in a readable format.
9 For notice type reports and reports that allow separate reports to be mailed to each library in the report, the Auto Email to Recipients With Email Addresses in Their Patron Record check box is available. Select this check box to email individual notices to users with valid email addresses, or to email individual reports to the email address entered in the EMAIL field in the primary address of the library’s user record.

Note: If your library is configured for User Groups, and a member of the user group is indicated as the Notice Master on the User Groups tab of the user record, all notices for the group will be sent to the Notice Master only.

10 Select the language in which you want the report to be sent from the Email Language drop-down list.
11 In the Email Subject Line field, enter a subject (up to 64 characters) for the report email. This subject will be used for all emails sent by this report. If you prefer, you can use the default “Library Notice” text. (If you leave the field blank, the subject will use the default text.)

Note: If you include pipe characters ( | ) in the Email Subject Line field, the program will replace them with spaces before emailing the report.

12 In the Reply To field, type or select email addresses. The Reply To field is used for the sender address as well as the reply to address.
13 Click Schedule to schedule the report.

For some hardware platforms, such as SOLARIS SPARC, the UNIX mail utility delivered with the operating system does not support the Allow Sender’s Email Address option. Check with your hardware provider to see if this functionality is supported for your hardware platform, and configure the Report wizard accordingly.

If the Notify Owner When Report is Finished check box is selected, the email address that appears in the From field of the email notification message is the login or email address of the user who last ran the report server.

If the Email to Individual(s) check box is selected when the report is scheduled, and if the Print Separate Reports for Each Library check box is selected on the Print Separate Reports for Each Library tab, the specified user(s) will receive multiple email messages for notice type reports and for the List Onshelf Items with Holds report. One of the messages will contain just the complete report log. The other mail message will contain all of the notices generated for the specific library, or will contain a partial report log and a list of holds for the specific library.

How do I set up WorkFlows to automatically print finished reports?

WorkFlows can be configured as follows to automatically send the report to a printer when the report finishes.

It is recommended that you do not set up a report to print automatically to an unattended printer. If the printer has a paper jam, is offline, or for any reason is unable to complete the print job, SirsiDynix can offer no recovery procedures.

To automatically send a report to a printer

1 On the Configuration toolbar, and click the Module Configuration wizard group.
2 Click the Report Policy wizard.
3 Make sure the Allow Direct Printing check box is selected.
4 Click Save.
5 On the Reports toolbar, click the Report Session wizard. In the Application to View Reports field, specify the default application that will launch and send the finished report to the printer. You can use the Select File gadget to find the application file. Click OK to close the report session properties window.
6 When you schedule a report, select the Send to Printer check box, and type or select the printer name in the list.
7 Make sure the Format check box adjacent to the Send to Printer check box is selected so the printed report will appear in a readable format.
8 Click Schedule. When the report finishes, the application specified in the Application to Print Reports field in the report session properties starts and prints the report on the selected printer.

Library staff are not receiving emailed reports. What could be going wrong?

If users are not receiving finished reports by email, check the following.

• In the user record, the user’s email address must be in a field labeled EMAIL.
• The EMAIL field must be in the primary address of the user records.
• Emailing of finished reports must be configured in policies. On the Configuration toolbar, click the Module Configuration wizard group. Click the Report Policy wizard, and make sure the Allow Direct Email check box is selected.
• When you schedule a report, make sure the Email to Individual(s) check box under Printing/Distribution in the Schedule window is selected, and the user email addresses are entered in the field. The field has a 256 character limit, including separators between email addresses.
• If you want the report owner to be notified when the finished report is emailed, make sure the Notify Owner When Report is Finished check box is selected in the Report Session wizard.

If you find that every point in the list above is followed correctly, and users are still not receiving emailed reports, then the problem may be in the mail tool on your server.

To test the mail tool if your server is Dec Alpha, Hewlett-Packard, or SUN Solaris

1 Log in as sirsi.
2 Type mailx followed by your email address, for example:

mailx admin@library.org

3 Type the subject of the message, or press ENTER.
4 Type a test message, and press ENTER.
5 Press CTRL+D.
6 Press ENTER.

If your system is some other UNIX platform besides Dec Alpha, Hewlett-Packard, or SUN Solaris, use the same steps as above, except replace mailx with mail.

Finished reports are not printing automatically. What could be going wrong?

If reports are not printing automatically when the reports finish running, check the following.

• On the Configuration toolbar, click the Module Configuration wizard group, and click the Report Policy wizard. Make sure the Allow Direct Printing check box is selected.
• On the Reports toolbar, click the Report Session wizard, and make sure the full pathname of the Windows application you want to use for printing reports is specified in the Application to View Reports field.
• When you schedule the report, make sure the Send to Printer check box and the adjacent Format check box are selected in the Schedule window. If you are using a printer other than the default Windows printer, make sure the printer name is selected in the list next to the Send to Printer check box.
• Check the printer queue and the printer for any problems that may prevent the reports from printing.

Related topics 

FAQs: Automatic Emailing and Printing of Notices

Notices Helper

Report Session Wizard

Finished Reports Wizard