We recently created dashboards using the Report Builder function in NXT - they work great! However, we want to be able to have them emailed to us regularly and that isn't an option. Is this a possibility with the report builder or only the reports c

Lindsay Lewis
Lindsay Lewis
Fourth Anniversary Kudos 1 Participant Facilitator 1
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions
Is the email functionality a possibility in NXT with the report builder function?

Comments

  • Karen Diener
    Karen Diener
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply Name Dropper
    I am almost certain that you cannot get these emailed regularly. I checked quickly and don't see a link for it. It seems to only be possible for the existing reports that you modify and save as a view.


    Just so you know, the "automatically email" function is not great. You can't modify your distribution list, so adding / removing staff means you need to republish the report. It's messy, and you sadly aren't missing out on something terribly useful.


    Karen
  • Lindsay Lewis
    Lindsay Lewis
    Fourth Anniversary Kudos 1 Participant Facilitator 1
    Thank you for letting me know! I wonder if it's on the radar to be fixed.
  • Jeannie Goings
    Jeannie Goings
    Fifth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant
    Lindsay Lewis‍, not sure if I am understanding your question fully, but I will share from the reporting tab there is a little clock icon, upper right corner. If you click the icon you can schedule the report to be emailed.
  • Lindsay Lewis
    Lindsay Lewis
    Fourth Anniversary Kudos 1 Participant Facilitator 1
    Hi Jeannie! Yes, the link is there on the reports that are canned in NXT. We created our own reports/dashboard using Report Builder and the share link isn't an option.
  • Karen Diener
    Karen Diener
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply Name Dropper
    There is one idea I found in the idea bank. In the comments, someone linked to a similar idea about the ability to export them as Excel or PDF. If these are of interest to anyone, definitely go vote! This is the best place to let Blackbaud know how important new features are to clients.


    Karen
  • Jeannie Goings
    Jeannie Goings
    Fifth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant
    Lindsay Lewis‍ yes, this is annoying. We share the custom reports that we put together with our president who does not have access to RENXT. If you click on the properties tab of the report, you can create a password protected link to share with those who do not have access to RENXT. There is also a link to the report. But you are correct that there is no feature to "schedule" an email to land in your inbox. It is a marvelously manual task. grrrrrr
  • Lindsay Lewis
    Lindsay Lewis
    Fourth Anniversary Kudos 1 Participant Facilitator 1
    Jeannie Goings‍ thank you! We experience the same thing!
  • Tom Klimchak
    Tom Klimchak
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant
    I totally agree with you all that an option export the custom dashboard/reports and or email out a PDF version would be very, very helpful.


    We are one of the (few) organizations that still try to use Queue in database view (it works!... with caveats).


    However, I am starting to understand the bigger "philosophy" of dashboards and online reports and Blackbaud (and other organizations) really want you to think of "Dashboards" as something like the dashboard of your car: it's a tool that gives you up-to-date information. Just as you wouldn't take a photo of your speedometer and email it to yourself to see how fast you were going, you wouldn't want to get old data from a dashboard.


    Dashboards are a tool that users (even executives) should learn to use and seek out rather than just have it spoon-fed to them in email where the data is already hours (days?) older.


    That's the the ideal, though I'm right there with you: I have built some great custom dashboards but it's almost impossible to get anyone on our staff to USE them as dashboards. The best they do now is have secretaries use the dashboards, type the results into an Excel report... and then email it out to various people. ?

    Sigh...
  • Laura Easterly
    Laura Easterly
    Fifth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant

    @Jeannie Goings @Lindsay Lewis @Karen Diener - the scheduled report delivery via email option is only available for the built-in blackbaud provided dashboards. It's not available for any custom dashboards you create for yourself.

  • Karen Diener
    Karen Diener
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply Name Dropper

    Yes, I'm aware of that. My post included a link to the idea bank, and suggestion to allow custom designed reports to also be “emailable”. I wish they would change a lot of functionality related to reports in NXT!

    Karen

  • Maryrose Larkin
    Maryrose Larkin
    Fifth Anniversary Name Dropper Participant Facilitator 1

    So frustrating! we used to be able to do this!

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