Report Manager

The Report Manager includes 4 components:

1. Custom storage of relevant configurations, which:
   • Leverages new custom storage endpoint in the Sisense REST API that:
     • Allows storing custom data objects in Sisense mongoDB, in a dedicated collection, and retrieving them, via our REST API; and
     • Maintains all security and infrastructure abilities native to Sisense
   • Stores settings in MongoDB that may be accessed via said endpoint
   • Uses a data model that store the following information:
     • Administrative user who created the task and metadata
     • Scheduling information
     • Recipient list, with the following attributes:
       • Email
       • Personal filters
     • Collection of dashboard objects
       • Dashboard ID
       • Collection of filters
2. Programmatic export of PDFs/CSVs, based on predefined settings.  This is an external component that:
   • Requires
     • Storage of a set of administrative user credentials (username & password); and
     • Integration of code for multi-page table export
   • Leverages the Sisense REST API’s capabilities to export PDF/CSV:
     • Permitting an administrative user to impersonate a Viewer user, thereby emulating that user’s data security
     • With substitute filters without affecting the source dashboard
   • Bases layout/visual configuration on Pixel Perfect configuration (previewLayout object) if it exists
3. External emailing capability, which:
   • Clones the code in Sisense to the external component;
   • Relies on the same emailing mechanism as that which is native to Sisense; and
   • Allows custom templates in predefined HTML
4. Scheduling service, which:
   • Is similar to the one implemented by Sisense High-Availability services Orchestrator, specifically:
     • It uses CRON date-time formatting
     • Will be registered as a Windows service.  This requires manual action when installing on new machines
   • Has the following workflow:
     • Constantly reads custom storage for configuration;
     • Detects schedules set for current tick;
     • For each tick:
       • Execute script to export all configured dashboards to a cache folder
       • Execute script to send email with attachments
     • Cleans up cache when complete

Installation

1. Download archive containing Report Manager and unpack it somewhere on disk C:\
   It has the next structure:
   
   Key folders highlighted on the image above:
   • _Data – will contain csv config files (The full description of config files will be listed in the Configuration section of this document)
   • _logs – will contain log files of export manager
   • Downloads – will contain partial exported and generated pdf files for each report.
   • Reports – will contain generated merged pdf reports.
2. Rename file extension pdftk_free-2.02-win-setup.changeToExe to  pdftk_free-2.02-win-setup.Exe
3. Make all needed configurations listed under Configuration section of this document
4. Before installing make sure you have Node on your server and configure its path under the Environment variables. In case you use the same server as Sisense, no need to install node. Just do the following:
   • Extract the additional zip file located under the report manager folder called “Without Node Installation.zip” – it contains node_modules folder with npm package inside, node.exe and npm.cmd
   • Then, set the current path of you report manager under the Environment Variables.
5. Run ReportsManager\installation.bat  file as administrator.
   Important: In case you do need to install node, use the proper installation (under report manager folder ReportsManager\installationWithNode.bat. This will install node-v6.11.2-x64.msi as well).
   This will install PDFtk tool which is needed for manipulations on pdf files, and  then will run npm install to install all dependencies, after that the application will be started.Note about PDFtk : To work with PDF files external tool’s capabilities are used, thus before running export manager PDFtk tool should be installed. It should be automatically installed by installation.bat file, so everything that is needed here that it was installed under correct path. Installation steps:
   • Make sure that it’s installed in C:\Program Files (x86)\PDFtk
   • Verify that pdftk.exe exists in C:\Program Files (x86)\PDFtk\bin

   If you encounter some errors during installation process, that are connected to hummus library installation(errors will look something like on the picture below):
   
   

   To resolve, try the following:

   • Run npm install –global –production windows-build-tools command, it will ensure  that all required build tools are installed
   • Delete folder C:\Users\<CURRENT USER>\.node-gyp
   • If both didn’t help, open a command line with Admin privileges and navigate to the “Report Manager” Folder, then run the following command: npm install.

   Configuration

   The application configuration conntain configuration of next items:

   • Dashboard configuration
   • Config.js file configuration
   • CSV configuration files
   • Email template configuration

   For more detailed configuration steps, please review this document.

07 October 2019 – Fixed the issue with version checker