Email subscriptions

A subscription emails a report on a schedule as a PowerPoint, PDF or Excel file. Use it when people need the latest numbers in their inbox without opening DataPrism. An emailed PDF or PPTX carries the pages your readers can see: a hidden page is left out.

Subscribe to a report

You need a subscribe permission to see Subscribe. See Who can do what in DataPrism.

1. Open the report and click Subscribe in the report header. You can also choose Subscribe to email from the report's menu in the workspace, or New subscription on the Subscriptions list.
2. If the dialog opens on Existing, click New subscription. It opens on New subscription when the report has no subscriptions yet.
3. In Schedule, choose Frequency (Daily, Weekdays, Weekly or Monthly). For Weekly, choose a day from Mon to Sun. For Monthly, choose a Day of month.
4. Set Time. To send more than once a day, click Add time for each extra time (see Send several times a day).
5. Check Time zone. A new subscription starts on your own time zone. The Sends line previews the schedule, for example Sends daily at 09:00, 13:00 (Asia/Almaty).
6. Under Format, choose PPTX, PDF or Excel.
7. Under View, keep Author's view, or choose A bookmark or A story (below).
8. Under Recipient visibility, choose Hidden (BCC) or Visible (To).
9. Leave the mode on Myself, or choose Others and add recipients under Subscribing.
10. Click Subscribe. A "Subscribed" message confirms it, and the report arrives on schedule.
11. When a subscription exists, the header button reads Subscribed, and its description reads "You get this report by email - view or manage your subscriptions".

Settings and defaults

Others needs the Subscribe Others to DataPrism Reports permission (see Permissions below). Weekdays sends Monday to Friday.

For Monthly, choosing day 29 or later means shorter months send on their last day. The form says "Shorter months send on their last day."

Send several times a day

• Click Add time to add a send time one hour after the latest one, then change it if you need. Add time disappears at 24 times.
• The X beside a time removes it. It is not shown while only one time is left.
• Frequency and the day settings apply to every time. Weekdays at 09:00 and 17:00 sends twice on each weekday, and Weekly on Mon at 09:00 and 13:00 sends twice every Monday.
• Times must be at least 1 hour apart. For Daily and Weekdays, the gap from the last time to the next day's first time counts too, so 23:30 and 00:15 cannot be combined.
• When two times clash, both are marked and the form says why, for example "Send times must be at least 1 hour apart (13:00 and 13:30)." or "Send times must be different (09:00 is listed twice)." Subscribe and Save changes stay off until you fix it.
• The schedule lists the times in order, whatever order you add them in.

Time zone

• Time zone decides what 09:00 means. A new subscription starts on your browser's time zone; editing a subscription shows the zone it was saved with.
• Pick another zone by searching a city or a country. The field shows the place and its offset, for example Tokyo, Japan (GMT+9).
• The schedule and Next run use the subscription's time zone, and the schedule names it in brackets, for example Daily at 09:00, 13:00 (Asia/Almaty).
• Subscriptions created before Time zone existed carry the time zone they already ran on, so their send times did not move.
• When clocks go forward, a time that does not exist that day is sent later by the size of the jump. When clocks go back, a time that happens twice is sent once, the first time.
• A new or changed subscription sends at the first matching time still ahead, today included. A Weekly subscription for Friday created on Thursday sends the next day.

Choose the view a subscription sends

View sets what the attachment shows. Bookmarks are explained on Bookmarks.

• A story or a bookmark that opens a hidden page sends that page.
• Hidden visuals never appear in the attachment.
• Excel sends the author's view or one bookmark, with the bookmark's filters applied. A story cannot be sent as Excel: A story is greyed out while Excel is chosen, and Excel while A story is, with the tooltip "Excel subscriptions send the author's view or one bookmark, not a story."
• Only the person who creates a subscription can pick one of their own bookmarks for it. Anyone else who manages the subscription sees that choice as The creator's personal bookmark and cannot change it to another of the creator's bookmarks.
• Each recipient gets the bookmark under their own row-level security, and no value outside their access is shown.

When a bookmark is deleted, the report still goes out, and the email carries a note instead of failing:

• Bookmark "Q3 focus" no longer exists, so this send shows the report as its author saved it.
• Bookmark "Q3 focus" opens a page that no longer exists, so this send shows the report as its author saved it.
• The bookmark group "Quarterly story" no longer exists, so this send shows the report as its author saved it.
• This report has no bookmarks left in this story, so this send shows the report as its author saved it.
• 2 bookmarks of this story no longer exist and were left out.

Recipients

• Myself delivers the report to you only. In Myself mode the recipients panel stays locked and reads "Switch to Others to add people, roles, or email addresses."
• Others lets you add recipients in two ways. Use the Search users and roles box and click a user or role to add it; a role reads Everyone who holds this role. Or type an address under Or an email address and click Add; Enter adds a valid address too.
• Each recipient gets the report under their own row-level security. A recipient who would see no rows gets a warning: "{email} won't see any data (not covered by row-level security)". If the model uses SQL-based row-level security, the form notes that the data depends on the rule. Neither note blocks the subscription. See Row-level security and View as.

Manage your subscriptions

Open the Subscriptions tab on the DataPrism home page. The list shows Report, Workspace, Model, Recipients, Status, Format, View, Schedule, Next run, Last sent and, in the Everyone's scope, Created by.

Use the scope above the list to switch between Mine and Everyone's. Everyone's appears only if you hold View Others DataPrism Subscriptions.

Open a subscription's menu for its actions: Edit..., Send test email to me, Send test email to all recipients, Pause or Resume, Open report and Unsubscribe.... They appear for subscriptions you can manage, and you can always manage the ones you created.

• Edit... changes Schedule (frequency, days, times and time zone), Format, View and Recipient visibility. An existing Excel subscription keeps Excel even when its report no longer qualifies. It cannot change recipients.
• Pause stops the sends; Resume starts them again with the same settings.
• Unsubscribe... asks you to confirm. It stops the subscription for all its recipients.

More about the list, the edit dialog and test sends is on Manage subscriptions and test sends.

Send a test email

A test sends the saved subscription now, either to you alone or to everyone on it.

1. Find the subscription in the Subscriptions list and open its menu.
2. Choose Send test email to me or Send test email to all recipients. While the test runs, both items are replaced by Sending test email....
3. A "Test send started" message appears. For you, it says the report is being rendered and emailed to you; recipients are not emailed. For all recipients, it names how many, for example "Sending a test email to 12 recipients."
4. When the test finishes, DataPrism shows one result: "Test email sent to you", "Test email sent" (for all recipients, for example "Test email sent to 12 recipients."), "Test email sent with warnings", "Test email skipped" or "Test email failed". While it is still running it reads "Test send still running".

• A test email's subject starts with [Test] , and the email is labelled Test send.
• A test never changes the schedule: Next run stays where it was.
• Your account needs an email address to receive a test. Without one, Send test email to me does not start: "Your account has no email on file to send the test to."
• One test per subscription runs at a time. A second one is refused: "A test send for this subscription is already running."
• You do not need to keep the window open for the result; it can take a few minutes and stays available for about an hour. If the server restarted mid-test, it says "The server running this test send stopped before it finished. Check the send log." If the result has expired, it says "The test send result is no longer available; check the send log."
• You can also send a test from a subscription's edit dialog: Send test in its footer offers the same two choices and sends the saved settings without saving the draft. See Manage subscriptions and test sends.

Test to all recipients

• The test goes out the way a scheduled send does. Roles are expanded to the people who hold them now, each recipient gets the report under their own row-level security, and Recipient visibility decides whether addresses go in To or BCC.
• With more than 10 people, DataPrism asks first, for example "Send test to 12 people?" with "Everyone on this subscription will receive this test email." Choose Send test or Cancel. With 10 or fewer, the test starts at once.
• A subscription whose recipients resolve to nobody sends nothing: "This subscription has no recipients to email."
• A test to all recipients can run once every 5 minutes per subscription. Sooner, it is refused with "Test email not sent" and, for example, "A test was sent to the recipients less than 5 minutes ago. Try again in 3 min."
• It needs the same right as subscribing those recipients: Subscribe Others to DataPrism Reports, unless the subscription goes only to you.

What happens when a send fails

• If a send fails, DataPrism retries it once, a few minutes later. The status reads Failing until a send succeeds.
• If the retry fails too, the subscription waits for its next scheduled time.
• Some failures are not retried. These include an attachment over the size limit and an Excel report that is no longer one page with a single table. They wait for the next scheduled time.
• When no recipient resolves, for example a deleted user, an empty role or a deactivated account, the send is skipped and the status reads Failing: "No recipients resolved (deleted user, empty role, or deactivated account)."
• Deliveries can arrive a few minutes after the time you set.

Every send is recorded. To read the history, open Observability > Logs > Subscriptions. See Audit, sign-in and notification logs. For other problems, see Troubleshooting.

Permissions

You can always edit, pause and unsubscribe the subscriptions you created.

Limits and edge cases

• Excel works only for a report with exactly one page and a single table; a matrix does not count, and neither do hidden visuals, text boxes, images or a bookmark navigator. Otherwise the option is disabled with the tooltip "Excel subscriptions need exactly one page with a single table".
• Excel also needs Export DataPrism Report Data. Without it, saving fails with 'Excel subscriptions need the "Export DataPrism Report Data" permission.'
• PPTX and PDF subscriptions need the server renderer. Where it is not available, saving is refused with "PDF subscriptions need the server renderer, which is not configured on this environment.", and a send fails with "The server renderer is not configured on this environment, so PPTX and PDF subscriptions cannot be sent."
• An attachment larger than 20 MB is not sent; the send fails with "The attachment exceeds the 20MB limit."
• A report with no title reads as Untitled report.
• Email copies are separate from manual exports; see Export reports and data.
• An emailed PDF or PPTX leaves hidden pages out, so the attachment holds only the pages readers can see.
• Slides has its own email subscriptions. See Email subscriptions.

Questions, answered

Why did the email arrive at a different time from the one I set?

Check the subscription's Time zone: its times are read in that zone, which may not be yours. Sends are also checked every 5 minutes, so a delivery can arrive a few minutes after its time.

Why is Excel greyed out?

Excel needs a report with exactly one page and a single table, and it cannot send a story. Hover over Excel to read the tooltip; with A story chosen under View, it reads "Excel subscriptions send the author's view or one bookmark, not a story."

Do recipients see my data or theirs?

Their own. Each recipient gets the report under their own row-level security.

Can I send to someone outside my company?

Yes, if you hold Subscribe Others to DataPrism Reports. Type their address under Or an email address and click Add. If the report has row-level security, the form warns you when that address will see no data.

Will recipients see each other's addresses?

Not with Hidden (BCC), which is the default. Visible (To) shows every address.

Why does the status say Failing?

Hover over the status to read the reason. A failed send is retried once, a few minutes later. If the retry fails, the subscription waits for its next scheduled time. A send that finds no recipients is also marked Failing.

Can a report be sent more than once a day?

Yes. Click Add time under Time for each extra send, up to 24 a day, at least 1 hour apart. Every time follows the same Frequency and day settings.

Does a test email go to everyone?

Only if you choose Send test email to all recipients. Send test email to me goes to you alone, and recipients receive nothing. Either way the subject starts with [Test] and the schedule does not move.

Can I change the recipients of a subscription?

No. Edit... changes the schedule, format, view and recipient visibility only. To change recipients, unsubscribe and create a new subscription.

The attachment was too large. What now?

Attachments are capped at 20 MB. Reduce the number of pages or visuals in the report, then send a test email to check the size.

Why can I not see the Subscribe button?

You need Subscribe to DataPrism Reports or Subscribe Others to DataPrism Reports. Ask an administrator to add one of them to your role.

Does an emailed report include hidden pages?

Not with Author's view: an emailed PDF or PPTX carries only the pages readers can see. A bookmark or a story whose bookmark opens a hidden page sends that page. Hidden visuals are never in the attachment.