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Creating an External Distribution File

How to:

When creating a schedule, you can distribute scheduled output to a single recipient, or to several recipients. If you are creating a schedule to be distributed to several recipients, you may want to create an external distribution file consisting of multiple recipients. The external distribution file can then be assigned to any schedule. An external distribution file is functionally similar to a Distribution List except it is created outside of ReportCaster.

In addition, you can include a password in a Distribution File. If you include a password in a Distribution File it is used to encrypt the distribution output in a password protected Zip file if the Zip option is selected. This option is only available if the ReportCaster Server Configuration option, Zip Encryption Password Plug-in, is set to None. When the ReportCaster Server Configuration option, Zip Encryption Password Plug-in, is set to Default or to a custom value, passwords in a Distribution File are ignored because the plug-in is used to provide passwords.

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Syntax: How to Create an External Distribution File

The external distribution file must contain comma-delimited records, where the maximum length of each record is 800 characters. Records must end with a comma followed by a dollar sign (,$). Each record must be typed on a separate line in the file.

To specify a record for a non-burst procedure, use the following format: 

distributiondestination,,$

where:

distributiondestination

Is a valid e-mail address, FTP file name, or printer.

To specify a record for a burst procedure, use the following format:

distributiondestination,burstvalue,$

where:

distributiondestination

Is a valid e-mail address, FTP file name, or printer.

burstvalue

Is a valid burst value for the report being scheduled.

Tip: You can specify multiple e-mail addresses within a single record of an external distribution file. For details, see Specifying Multiple E-mail Addresses.

To specify a password for Zip output distribution, include the following statement to enable encryption and record format: 

#encryption enabled
distributiondestination,burstvalue,password,$

where:

password

Is the value to be used as the password to access the Zip file.

Note:

The following is an example of a distribution file that contains the encryption enabled statement and several records that include password values to be passed to the Distribution Server:

#encryption enabled
mcr@company.com,England,abcd,$
jsmith@company.com,Australia,rrrAx,$
rable@company.com,France,UtLRzet,$
tom@gadgetco.com,Italy,mOmPP,$
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Procedure: How to Automatically Delete an External Distribution File

You can configure ReportCaster to automatically delete external distribution files after a schedule runs.

  1. Create a blank text file named fileaddr.txt in the cfg directory under the ReportCaster installation directory (for example, C:\ibi\ReportCaster76\cfg).
  2. Create a directory named addrpath on the same machine as the ReportCaster Distribution Server (for example, C:\ibi\ReportCaster76) that will hold the deleted distribution files.
  3. Edit the fileaddr.txt file to include the fully qualified directory path to the external distribution files to be deleted (for example, C:\ibi\ReportCaster76\addrpath). A slash at the end of the directory path is optional. If an invalid directory path is specified in fileaddr.txt, no external distribution files will be deleted.
  4. Place the external distribution file(s) you want automatically deleted when a schedule runs in the C:\ibi\ReportCaster76\addrpath directory.
  5. Modify your schedules so that the external distribution file(s) are retrieved from the directory created in Step 2, for example, the C:\ibi\ReportCaster76\addrpath directory.
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