The functionality in DataDynamic to create large stacks of reports in Powerpoint or PDF will help you save a lot of time, but once you have your 50, 100 or even 1000 reports you will still need to distribute them, something that can be a challenge.
DataDynamic helps out here as well, at least if you are planning to send your reports through e-mail.
When creating reports, under advanced settings there is the "Mailing file" checkbox option.
If you check this option and then select either of the following two options:
- Mail adres from data; Here you can select a variable from your dataset that contains the email address where you want to send the report. DataDynamic will use the value from the first case within the current report group as the email address.
- Mail address from MS Excel compatible file; Allows you to select an external MS Excel compatibe file (*.xlsx; *.xls;*.csv).
The excel file should have the code for the categories of the lowest runlevel in the first column (one per row), the second, third and fourth column can hold email addresses to be used in the "To", "Cc" and "Bcc" email address fields.
A "To" email address is minimum requirement.
If you run your reports with the configuration as above, an additional file will be created in the output directory called "MailList.xlsx", if you open the file you will see that it contains one row for every report in the output directory. The first column contains the filename, the second, third and fourth the email addresses for the different address fields in an email.
During report production you can safely select these settings as nothing else will happen then that this file is created.
Once you are completely happy with your reports and have assured that the correct e-mail addresses are picked up, you can continue by clicking on "Mail reports" in the top menu on the "Office reports" tab. You should now see the following screen:
| Select saved settings | Will allow you to save multiple different configurations, this helps if you send reports on a regular basis. Making mistakes when sending reports can be a big issue as it directly involves your customer, this function will help you minimize the changes of something going wrong. You can save the current configuration by clicking on the plus behind the drop down or remove settings by clicking on the minus button. |
| Report directory | The output directory containing your validated reports as well as the "MailList.xlsx" as created following the steps above. |
| Select mail server settings | DataDynamic allows you to send reports from your own e-mail account, to do this it will need access to your SMTP server for which it will need the correct details. Server details can be stored separately as you will most likely only use one. If you click on the plus the following popup screen should appear:  Here you can enter all the required details to allow DataDynamic to send e-mails in your name. You might need help from your IT department or e-mail provider to get hold of these details. |
| Send all with BCC to | If you want to track e-mails being send out by receiving a blind carbon copy (bcc) of every e-mail send, then you can just enter your own e-mail address in this field. |
| Test mode | If switched on e-mail addresses from the MailList.xlsx will be ignored and all reports will be sent to the specified e-mail address. The "Send all with BCC to" e-mail address if provided will still receive copies. |
| MailMessage | Allows you to configure the subject and the text of the accompanying e-mail. |
| Pre-email check | Will run a check to see if any errors are detected without actually sending out any report-emails. The following checks are performed:
test results will be echoed in the output section. |
| Start mail | Will rerun the above test (without sending out another test email) and if it passes will actually start sending out the reports to the e-mail addresses found in "MailList.xlsx" |