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Forums Performance Management Lawson Business Intelligence/Reporting/Crystal

Emailing LBI reports

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Law123
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5/6/2014 2:54 PM
We are converting from Crystal Enterprise to LBI for reporting.
Crystal Enterprise allows reports to be emailed to an outlook distribution group (i.e. Accounting).
This reduces report maintenance because I don't have to do anything when new accounting personnel are hired. The outlook groups are maintained by others.

Can LBI reports be emailed to an outlook group? If so, how? I've assigned email addresses to individual users, but I don't know how to get LBI to email to an outlook group.

I've created LBI custom groups and added individual users to them. I've emailed reports to the custom group members, but these groups have to be maintained (so I have to be notified when new accountants are hired and manually add them to the custom group). The other issue I noticed is that the resuting outlook email does not list each custom group receipent. For example, the email may go to four report users, but the email that is receive only shows it going to one person (I guess four separate emails are sent). I know there are other ways to determine who the report was emailed to, but it would be helpful if the email listed all receipients (one email sent to all receipents). That way report receipents know who also receives the report.
Greg Moeller
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5/6/2014 3:31 PM
You could set up a 'generic' user with the groups email address as their delivery device... Wouldn't even really have to have access.. Just an email address. But that takes away some of the bursting options. But you may not be concerned with those?
Law123
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5/6/2014 3:44 PM
Thanks. So set up a 'generic' user in Lawson Security and then assign the outlook email address in LBI delivery services> Thank you for your help. And you're correct, I'm generally not concerned about bursting these reports. But If I set up a 'generic' user, I would think I'd be able to set up bursting rights for this 'user' as well.

Any thoughts on the 2nd item? For some reports, I'll only email to custom groups, but the resulting emails don't show all recepients. So if the CFO gets the report, if you be nice if he knew which of his other direct reports, if any, also receives the report.
Greg Moeller
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5/6/2014 3:51 PM
Yes, exactly.
And what I meant by the bursting... yes, you can set up bursting rights for the group 'user', but each individual in the group couldn't see 'their' section of the report only.
Greg Moeller
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5/6/2014 3:55 PM
With version 10 of LBI comes 'report auditing'. This is turned off by default, but you could turn it on, and write another report against the ReportingServices database, that MAY get you what you are looking for.
Law123
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5/6/2014 4:17 PM
Thank you. You are very helpful.
Donna
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5/14/2014 8:14 PM
Hi Law123,

I read the posts between you and Greg. I would like to stay in touch with you. We are very interested in comparing the advantages of both LBI and BOE. Any knowledge you are willing to share would be greatly appreciated.

We have LBI, BOE and an assortment of other distribution tools for our organization. We would like to consolidate to one distribution tool. Currently we use LBI for Lawson Reporting and BOE for EPIC.
We are considering using BOE for Lawson, EPIC/ Clarity, Midas and Kronos reporting. However, we have over 600 reports published in LBI and would like to make contact with other Lawson users who are using BOE for Lawson Reports to discuss their satisfaction level with BOE.

Greg Moeller
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5/14/2014 8:57 PM
We have LBI and BOE here too, and are working steadily at moving all reporting to use LBI.
The big, big, big reason that we haven't so far, is that BOE includes the ability to output to a network location that LBI just didn't have.
Until recently. Now that we are on a version that includes that functionality (I think it was introduced in LBI v10.2.x) it's full steam ahead.
I think the idea of utilizing the bursting feature of LBI was more conducive to our needs.
If you ever find out any information about how to connect to the Midas database(s), I'd sure be anxious to hear about.
Law123
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5/15/2014 2:05 AM
Hey Donna,

Good luck with your consolidation. We use various reporting/distribution tools as well (Crystal via LBI and BOE, SSRS, Tableau, and others) and we probably have a similar number of total reports as you do. We are migrating from Crystal Designer/BOE to Crystal Designer/LBI and SSRS. Although we've had no issues BOE for 5 years, we're on an older version that management does not want to upgrade. LBI has been GREAT from a bursting perspective. We've been able to burst some HR and GL (actual/budget variance) reports to individual users based on their specific rights. However, email in LBI (9.0.4.2) leaves a lot to be desired.
Law123
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5/15/2014 2:10 AM
Greg, we have several reports on Crystal Enterprise that are outpuy to a folder/directory. We have a similar issue in that we want to migrate these reports to LBI. In LBI, we are considering scheduling these reports, and then building a process flow to move these files from the server to the desired folder/directory.
Greg Moeller
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5/15/2014 2:04 PM
Just upgrade LBI to version 10.2 and you won't have to build any flows. It supports output to folder/directory now.