Scheduling Documents with Broadcast Agent

Broadcast Agent is a powerful BusinessObjects server product that allows InfoView and BusinessObjects users to refresh then distribute documents via the repository, an intranet, or the World Wide Web.

With InfoView, you can use Broadcast Agent to schedule any BusinessObjects or WebIntelligence document to be automatically refreshed at specific times, dates or intervals, then sent to users of your choice or published to the corporate repository. To make sure you get the latest updates of mission-critical information, you can even send yourself the pertinent documents, then schedule automatic refreshes for them. Each time the documents are refreshed, they will automatically be sent to you.

You can schedule document refreshes for off-peak times, for example at night, thereby reducing both daytime network traffic, and the risk that the task might not go through due to an overloaded network.

Broadcast Agent also supports condition-based processing, whereby a new task begins when and only when a certain condition has been met. This feature is called the File Watcher. For example, you can specify a file that must be present before BusinessObjects processes the document.

A typical use of this feature is the database administrator who posts a text file to signal the successful reload of a data warehouse; when the text file is present in the specified location, BusinessObjects refreshes and distributes the document(s).

For detailed information about File Watcher, see File Watcher Essentials.

You can view the status of any document you have scheduled using Broadcast Agent. See Monitoring your scheduled documents.

To Schedule an automatic refresh for a Document:

1. Do one of the following:

• From the document's Publish Page, in the Refresh Options section, select the Scheduled Refresh option, then click the Publish button.
• In the Refresh Options section of the Send Page, select the Scheduled Refresh option, then click the Send button.

The Scheduling Options page opens.



The Refresh frequency section contains a series of predefined scheduling options to the left, including the possibility to define a different, customized schedule. When you select an option, the entry fields to the right change to fit the selected option.
For information about these options, see Refresh scheduling options.
Notice that you access the bottom part of the window using the scrollbar to the right.

2. More than one Broadcast Agent may be installed in your InfoView cluster. In the Broadcast Agent field, choose the name of the Broadcast Agent you want to use.
3. If the document contains prompts, you can click View Prompts to update them.
4. In the File Watcher section:

• If you want the document(s) to be refreshed only if a particular file is present, enter the path and filename of the file you want the File Watcher to check for.
• If you want that file to be deleted as soon as the refresh starts, check that option.

For detailed information about the File Watcher, see File Watcher Essentials.

5. Click OK.

InfoView displays a message confirming that the document has been successfully published or sent.

If the Broadcast Agent with which you scheduled your document is not running when you publish, the document is published anyway, but the subsequent refresh-and-republish schedule is not processed until Broadcast Agent is up.

Note: You can make sure you receive regular updates of the documents that are critical to your work by sending those documents to yourself, and defining scheduled refreshes for them.

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