Who has Scheduler and how well does it work

Paul Wu

Hi all, just wondering if anyone has tried the scheduler for reports in NXT? What sort of issues have you run into?

Per the May 29/24 email an initial group was to receive the scheduler and then 2 weeks later the rest.

Rick Straub

@Paul Wu
As of today July 5th, I do not have the scheduler in my production database yet.

Paul Wu

@Rick Straub apparently it is not ‘available at the moment, but will be in the future.’

I still find this level of communication absolutely appalling. Initial email says June 2 onwards. As well as on June 17, it is posted to the What's Recent.

Here's the response I received from support.

I have reviewed the documentation and confirmed the status for this feature is planned. That means that it is not available at the moment, but it will be in the future.

We don't have a release date yet. You can check the what's new site to see new features available.

Rick Straub

@Paul Wu Agreed

Lisa Olscamp

@Paul Wu We have this, and it does appear to work okay. We have tested it on a few reports so far.

Jeff Trzaska

@Paul Wu

I have used it. If you select a report and right click on the ellipsis, you can schedule a report to run on a specific day and time, or repeat regularly. But…. The report must be set up so you don't have to edit it before running it. Also, after it runs, it sends a link to download the report. The linked report is a “cc” file. As far as I can tell, it can only be opened in PDF which is not helpful for our purposes. We would need to work in Excel. Basically it seems like a well meaning, but poorly implemented “feature” that can be used to make sales of the software, but it doesn't actually do anything. Their time would be better spent getting AR working 100% and uploads working 100% and making this system run faster and more smoothly. “All sizzle and no steak”.

Wendy Croker

@Jeff Trzaska I understand your frustration, I'd love to see some of those other modules working properly as well but I am waiting with bated breath for Scheduler to come to Canada. Back in the old FE days, we had the Queue and it was such a time saver. It had some quirks but it saved so much time sending reports out to my 50+ staff/volunteers. Attempting to train them to log into NXT and run their reports has not worked for most them.

I'm disappointed to hear that it currently only sends pdf reports, the old Queue did Excel as well. For my situation, I'm be happy to take the pdfs, most of my staff/volunteers don't use Excel.

Todd Feltner

@Paul Wu We have it but have only used it a couple of times so far. It sends a link to a pdf, which for us works fine. The issue we have is that it can only be sent to individuals who have a BBID, of which most of the people we send to do not currently.

Rick Straub

@Todd Feltner Holy Crap. Why in the world would Blackbaud create new functionality to only send to people with a BBID!!! Ok, I think we all can guess as to why. Absolutely terrible design and configuration. The whole reason for sending periodic reports automatically is for our budget and/or dept managers that are not in the system and don't need to be. Blackbaud, please change this. You absolutely went backwards from the old days of FE Queue and downloading pdfs, excels, other formats, and sending emails to anyone.

Jeff Trzaska

@Wendy Croker

Hello Wendy, it sounds like it can work for you. But be aware that the recipient of the report will have to have a BB Login. Or, you can send the reports to yourself, download them and then pass them along or put them in a folder that the staff would have access to. It is an OK functionality, but also half-baked. Software engineers are not real engineers, because they don't understand that you should put out your best work the first time.

Wendy Croker

@Jeff Trzaska - thanks for the info, that definitely decreases my hopes for a replacement to the Queue. Part of the issue with using view only users to run their reports was the confusion with BBIDs, they just don't want to have another login with MFA.

I've already confirmed with my BB account manager that it's only currently available in the US. They are planning to release outside of the country in a few months.

Wendy Croker

May I suggest that we add our votes to the Idea bank - there is one entitled ‘Scheduled Reports Email Improvements' that mostly addresses the concerns in this post. I can't figure out how to link it directly but you can search for the title. If anyone knows how to post the link, please do so.