The FastClose Scheduler allows administrators to automate the running of FastClose reports, delivering user reports as standardised report packs on a repeating timeframe, be that daily, weekly, monthly or even yearly.

Workflows

Each reporting job, is known as a workflow. A list of those currently defined can be found in the Administration user interface, by expanding “Scheduler” on the left hand side and selecting “Workflows” as shown below:

This summary information provides for each scheduled job:

• Name

• Start – the date and time that the job was first executed

• End – the date and time when the scheduler will no longer run the job (frequently it will never expire, in which case this will be stated)

• Next Execution – the date and time when the job is next expected to run.

• Last Run – the date and time that it last executed

• Last Run Status – indicating success, failure etc…

In addition, there in an “Enabled” flag that can be used to activate or deactivate the workflow. When disabled, the job will not execute, regardless of the schedule.

And also a “Run Now” to have the job execute, right now – usually used to test it is working correctly.

Creating a New Workflow

A new workflow can be created by clicking on the blue “Create” button and selecting one of the pre-configured job templates, as shown below:

Each reporting job can be customised including the timing, recurrence, output formatting, and method of distribution (including email, writing to a shared network location or upload via SFTP.

The configuration page is used to create and manage a Workflow—a sequence of one or more reporting tasks executed according to a defined schedule.

Overview of the Workflow Configuration Page

The configuration page is divided into the following major sections:

1. Workflow Properties

2. Recurrence Settings

3. Task List

4. Task Actions (Run Report / Send Email)

Workflow Properties

Enabled

• Purpose: Activates or deactivates the workflow.

• When disabled, no scheduled tasks execute.

Name

• Required name for the workflow.

• Appears in the scheduler list and logs.

Run As User

• The user profile or identity under which the workflow runs.

• Used for:  Permission‑based report access, Data visibility, Audit logging

Time Zone

• Sets the time zone used for all the scheduled times.

Starting On

• The first date the workflow becomes eligible to run.

Workflow Never Expires

• When unchecked, the workflow will require an expiry/end date.

When checked, it continues indefinitely.

Recurrence Settings

This controls when and how often the workflow runs.

Recurrence Interval

Includes options such as:

Run Once, Weekly (which by selecting more days gives you daily), Monthly, Days Before Month End, Yearly

For example in the Weekly Schedule shown above, you can select:

• Days of week (Mon–Sun)

• Each selected day will run at the times specified below.

• Times Of Day To Run including one or more execution times per day.

Tasks Section

A workflow may include one or more tasks.

The image above has two tasks, a Run Report task, and a Send Email task.

Tasks run in sequence (top to bottom), and there are a variety of them.

Each task continues a flag indicating whether to “Continue on Error” if the particular task should fail. If this is checked, the workflow continues even if a task fails.

The “Actions” button on each task is used to reorder tasks (move up, move down) or to remove them altogether from the workflow.

Clicking the blue Add New Task button adds a further task to the workflow. A variety of task types are available:

Task Types

Run Report

This will execute a FastClose report.

You can run as many reports as you like within a single workflow. When you come to writing the output, be it to email or a network drive, or whatever – all the reports run to that point will be output.

Send Email

Send the output of all reports run up to this point via email. This is usually done after one more or report‑execution tasks have been completed.

Generate Files

Create the output of all reports run up to this point and store on disk (often this would be a network share). This is usually done after one more or report‑execution tasks have been completed.

API Call

(Advanced: This can be used to send an API call to a third party service to trigger an action – for example a data upload refresh)

Upload via FTP

(Advanced: Create the output of all reports run up to this point and upload via FTP or SFTP to some external file store. This is usually done after one more or report‑execution tasks have been completed).

Publish Report to Endpoint

(Advanced: This is used where you want to make the output available for some other service to consume, such as Power BI Cloud. This requires a firewall port to be opened to access the file at the URL specified – and we would recommend that FastClose Server is secured via https / SSL. Note that the URL does not require authentication.)

Another way to achieve the same result (i.e. make data available to Power BI Cloud) would be to use the Generate Files task and install a Microsoft Data Gateway, or to upload the file to an FTP service.

Monitoring Workflows

The Scheduled Workflow list, updates every 10 seconds or so, to show the current state of running tasks.

Switching to the Workflow Results view, gives a more detailed view of what has run, in execution order:

Clicking on “View Details” here will show a view of all the previous executions of the job allowing comparison of run times, error conditions and so on.