LBI to network share export

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TimB
Basic Member
Posts: 8
Basic Member
    I am trying to publish a Crystal Report in LBI and schedule it to export in excel format to a network share. This seems like it would be a simple and popular request, but I don’t see the option to do this. Does anyone have any experience in this, or know if it’s possible?

    Thanks
    Will
    Veteran Member
    Posts: 39
    Veteran Member
      Hi,

      The "printers" in Reporting Services will help you just achieve that. All you would need is setup a printer (i.e.: a network share) and have your reports output to the printer as opposed to emails or users.

      Good luck!
      TimB
      Basic Member
      Posts: 8
      Basic Member

        I must not have my device set up right. in my SystemOut.log I'm seeing

        "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Reader 11.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe" /t "%file" "%printer"

        According to the knowledge base, I should see the path to the temp PDF and the network path instead of file and printer. Also will this only allow me to export a PDF? any thoughts on how to dump out a csv to a network path?

        Thanks
        Matthew Nye
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        Posts: 514
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          Tim,

          using the printer to burst to shared drives only works for PDFs. The best solution Ive come up with in the past for non-PDF network share bursting is:

          1. Set up a Device-Only users for each directory that needs to be burst to, using an email attachment monitoring software or email server scripting, check email message attachments of only the recipients created as Device-Only users, save all attachments to desired locations.
          2. Add a header to the CSV/Excel spreadsheet, create a custom program to search the LBI document directories, looking for values in the header row to determine where the files should be placed.
          3. Create a small bursting application using the Crystal SDK

          As you can see, this is not a task for the faint of heart. Network Share Bursting is something LBI users have been wanting to do for a very long time (ive had clients as far back as 2005 requesting it). My guess is few clients have entered an enhancement request for it though, since we have seen no progress on that end.

          good luck and let us know what you come up with.
          If any of my answers were helpful an endorsement on LinkedIn would be much appriciated! www.linkedin.com/pub/matthew-nye/1a/886/760/
          Will
          Veteran Member
          Posts: 39
          Veteran Member
            Hi guys,

            I have documented the process of "hijacking" the report-to-printer capabilities and turn it to report-to-shared-drive. That only works for PDF. It's available here: http://lbinote.com/report...e-scheduled-reports/

            Let me know if this helps!

            W
            TimB
            Basic Member
            Posts: 8
            Basic Member
              Thanks for all the advice, unfortunately I need a csv dumped out. I'm still very surprised a package like LBI does not support this simple functionality. I’m fairly fluent in C# so I may play around with their SDK when I get time. For now, we purchased Easy View, fairly cheap and does the trick until I find an LBI solution. http://easystreetsoftware...ts/EasyView_Main.php

              Thanks again
              Mary Porter
              Veteran Member
              Posts: 337
              Veteran Member
                When a report is run in LBI, where is the "latest instance" stored? Since we can't export a crystal report as a .csv to a network share, my interface person wants to know if
                I could schedule it to run and then he could schedule the report to be picked up and ftp'd.
                TimB
                Basic Member
                Posts: 8
                Basic Member
                  Mary,
                  Under "Reporting Services Administration" on the LBI Dashboard, there is a "System Settings" section. In the system settings there is a "Repository Path" that points to the a location that stores your reports instances. Under that path listed in system settings I believe there is a LawsonDocuments directory. That directory contains a directory for every report published on LBI, then inside those directories there is an "Instances" directory that contains a datestamped folder.

                  So eventually you will get to something like C:\LawsonDocuments\1_My Awesome Report\Instances\2014-01-23_1

                  Your interface person will just need to create a script to grab the csv from the latest folder. If multiple are run on the same day it increments the number at the end; 2014-01-23_1, 2014-01-23_2, 2014-01-23_3. Etc...

                  I'm fairly certain that is how it works, but I have not touched LBI in about 6 months, so someone with more LBI experience may want to confirm this.
                  Mary Porter
                  Veteran Member
                  Posts: 337
                  Veteran Member
                    Thanks Tim! I found the exact path when I opened up a a report in details and then did an export. Now we just have to see if our hosting partner will give us access to the directory. This could be very cool.
                    Greg Moeller
                    Veteran Member
                    Posts: 1498
                    Veteran Member
                      Mary: Just for future reference. LBI v 10.3.x now supports network drive exports.
                      I copied this part right out of the release notes for v 10.3.x
                      Network Drive Support
                      Infor Lawson BI now supports delivery of Reporting Services reports to
                      network drive locations.
                      Customers can now deliver a specific Reporting Services report to a shared
                      network drive location. This functionality will allow organizations to deliver
                      and manage report documents on shared network drive locations.
                      Note: Reports will also be delivered to the Lawson Documents directory.
                      TimB
                      Basic Member
                      Posts: 8
                      Basic Member
                        Thanks Greg! I was not aware of that. We are on 10.0.1, I may have to look into the difficulty of upgrading to 10.3.x.
                        Mary Porter
                        Veteran Member
                        Posts: 337
                        Veteran Member
                          Thanks Greg! We are going to be upgrading since we are currently on a version that doesn't allow us to import devices so
                          I am requesting that we go to 10.3.x
                          Joan Herzfeldt
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                          Posts: 74
                          Veteran Member
                            Adding to what Greg said about exporting to a network drive, be sure to set your File, Report Export options, in crystal reports prior to publishing in LBI. This sets the default export setting because LBI does NOT give you the option to customize your export.
                            I haven't figured out yet how to change the name of the file. It currently exports it as the 'report name'. Nor can I find how to use a regular expression in the name (eg: file name "export_myRpt_20150309". If anyone knows please share, otherwise I'll post again when I find out.
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