I work for a small insurance broker.  We've been succesfully running Crystal Report Server XI, along with CR XI, for several years now.  As one might expect, as time progresses, more and more reports are being designed and automated, taking advantage of the system.

 

One small bottleneck I've run into is the limited selection of "variable property placeholders" (ie macros) available in the Destination screens.

 

Specifically, the DateTime ( %SI_STARTTIME%) macro.

 

The problem I'm running into is that I'm now being asked to not just email reports to individuals, but store copies of those reports in a common network folder for supervisors to review.  For monthly reports, there would be a new folder for each month.

 

The macro gives me a complete date/time stamp.  For example, on a report run today at 2:45 AM, 2012-12-20-02-46-19 .  And that's the problem... it's TOO precise.  For what I need to do, to use the example, "2012-12-20" would be enough.

 

Since it is not possible to expect all of the reports (20 to 25 at a time) to run, and end, and the exact, precise second, if I try to use the DateTime macro as is, I end up with multiple folders -- not one.  Which means a manual cleanup, which defeats the whole point of the automation.

 

So... are there other date related macros available but undocumented?  If not, is there any way to add them in, or edit the existing macro?

 

Thanks!

 

FYI:  The reports being produced are all based on dBase dbf files generated from some programming I write & maintain (long story, unless you know what TAM is).   So I can add a field to the report itself to pull out the requried info, if there's a way to pull from the report into the attached email & directory.  If that helps...

 

1.  Create a folder based on the current date.

2.  Move any report that's in a common temporary destination folder to today's folder.

 

You could then use the Windows Scheduler to run this program at some point after you expect the reports to finish.  The reports themselves would all be scheduled to export to the common temp folder.

 

-Dell

 

At this point in time, I'll just continue with what I've been doing... I always email myself a cc of any report.   That way, I know it's actually run, and if a user has a question, it's right at my fingertips.  At present, I just save the attached reports from the Outlook email messages to the folder.  I'll continue to do so.

 

We currently have a project going on for one of our departments to develop a web-based analysis app.  That will require another internal web server, which will be getting the current version of Crystal.  Once that's in place & the other project operational, the plan was to migrate our reports from CR XI to the updated software & server. 

 

Hopefully, I'll have more options at that time.  I'll find out in about 4 months!

 

Thanks again.