Overview

There are scenarios where you may have a large number of reports that you would like to run, or maybe you have a single report that you need run many different times for different sets of filters and send it to different groups of people. Batch scheduling provides an easy way to set up bulk schedules to run on a cadence that you specify, or you can run them on demand. This article will cover how to set up batch scheduling in Cosmos and is made up of the following sections:

Creating a Batch File

Configuring the Batch File

Scheduling and Running the Batch File

Creating a Batch File

To create a batch file, you will navigate to the Reports section in Cosmos and click the 3 vertical dots to the right of New Report and click New Batch File:

You will then enter a name for the batch file and click Create.

This will create the new batch file and open it in Excel Online, or Excel Desktop if you picked that option. Once the file has been created you will configure the batch file which is covered in the next section.

Configuring the Batch File

A batch file can be created to run either a single report or multiple different reports. To configure a batch file for a particular report, we have made it easy to automate the process of setting up the various parameters. Navigate to the report in the Reports section that you would like to add to the batch file, click the "..." in the lower-right corner of the report card, and click Copy Batch Definition.

This will copy everything needed to add this report to a batch file. You can then go back to the batch file that you created in the previous step and paste this information using the standard CTRL+V keyboard shortcut to paste it into the Excel file.

Every report will have the following columns added:

• Report Name: The name of the report to be run
• Recipients: The email addresses of the recipients, separated by a semi-colon if there are multiple recipients. e.g. adam@mycompany.com; sarah@mycompany.com 
• Subject: The subject of the email. This can also by dynamic by leveraging Excel functionality to add in things like report option values that are in the same row. This way you can add something like the department code to the subject of the email.
• Body: The body of the email. 
• Drilldown Enabled: Specifies whether drilldown will be enabled or disabled when the report is run and sent.

If the report has report options, those will be specified next:

• Report Option: The name of the report option
• Enabled: Specifies whether the report option is enabled or not. If this is set to FALSE the report option will be ignored when the report is run.
• Operator: The operator to be used with the report option. For mathematical operators you can use either the text or sybol noted below. The possible values are:
  • = or Equals
  • <> or NotEquals
  • > or GreaterThan
  • >= or GreaterThanOrEqual
  • < or LessThan
  • <= or LessThanOrEqual
  • Between
  • StringContains
  • StringNotContains
• Value: This is the value to use for the report option. If there are multiple values, you will add another Value column to contain the second value, such as when you would want to run a report where the State is CA or WA. If you want to filter on a blank value, then you will use the syntax <<blank>>.

Once you have the first row set up, you can then copy it down and change the recipients, if desired, and the report options. Each row will represent a different report run that will be triggered and sent out with the batch file is run.

If you want to run different report in the same batch file, you can go to the other report(s), click the Copy Batch Definition on the report card, and paste it in. Each new section will run a different report when the batch file is run.

When your changes are complete, you can close the Excel file and check it in. The next step is to schedule the batch file which is covered in the next section.

Scheduling and Running the Batch File

You will schedule the batch file in the same manner that you would any other report. To do this, click the "..." in the lower-right corner of the batch file and click Schedule. You will then specify when you want the batch file to run. When the batch file run occurs it will run all the reports that were specified within the batch file and send them out. More information about scheduling batch files is covered in the article here:

How to Schedule Reports

You can also disable the schedule and just run the report on demand if that is preferable.