BCA - Sharing Reports
About
This article and video tutorial (below) cover sharing reports in BLUEcloud Analytics (BCA) using the Send Now and Share options. You can bookmark the BCA login page for easy access later. If you don't know your BCA login, please open a help desk ticket.
Sharing Reports
There are a few ways to share a report in BCA. You can use the Send Now feature, the Share feature, or export the report and email it.
Always export (download) report data that you need to save for use on a later date, or when you want to reorganize the data before emailing it.
To learn more about exporting reports, see BCA - Saving Reports.
Send Now vs Share
Choose the Send Now option when you want to email the report directly from BCA. You’ll be prompted to select your preferred format – Excel, CSV, HTML, plain text or PDF.
Send Now is a good option if you don’t want the recipient to have to log into BCA, or the recipient doesn’t have access to your library’s BCA login credentials.
For example, if one staff person typically handles BCA reports, he or she can use the Send Now feature to send report data to other staff, or you can use it to send data to board members.
Choose the Share option when you want to share a link to the report or embed the report on a web page.
This is a good option if you want the recipient to log into BCA, you want to highlight data on a web page, or you’re submitting a link to a report in a help desk ticket.
Send Now
After Running a Report
Let’s practice using the Send Now feature. Keep in mind that you can send a report before or after running it. Let’s run the report first.
Run a report -- for example, Collection Value – Items with Null or $0 Price. Notice that this report has the page-by axis of item type, which means you can view a list of unpriced materials one item type at a time.
To learn more about running reports and utilizing the page-by axis feature, see Single-Prompt Reports and Page-By Axis and Multi-Prompting Reports and Re-Prompting.
To send the data, click the Send Now icon (B), or, from the Report Home drop-down (A), select Send Now.
A Send Now window will open. If you’ve already saved contacts in Preferences, choose a recipient from the drop-down (C).
If you haven’t saved any contacts, or are sending the report to a new contact, click the To: button (D). Enter the contact’s name or position and email address, then click Add to Recipients.
Click OK to close the window.
The email address you sent the report to will be stored in your BCA preferences until you go in and remove it.
Refer to BCA - Getting Started for more information about preferences.
Always choose Data in email (E) from the Send drop-down. Select your delivery format (F). This example uses Excel.
Since this report utilizes the page-by axis feature, there is the option to Expand page-by fields (G). In this example, checking this box will put all the item type groupings in one Excel sheet. Leave this box unchecked if you only want to send the current page-by grouping, which in this case would be the item type on display when you chose to send.
Checking Place each page on a separate sheet (H) would, in this example, put each item type grouping on its own Excel sheet in the workbook, as demonstrated in BCA - Saving Reports.
You can edit the Subject and Message fields if you like. When you’re ready to send, click OK. The sender will be “Distribution Services" saas-smtp@bc.sirsidynix.net.
Below are examples of the same report sent with the Expand page-by fields unchecked then checked.
You’ll see that leaving the box unchecked will send a report with only the page-by grouping that was on display when you sent it, which in this example is BOOK.
You’ll see that checking the box contains all the page-by axis groupings.
Before Running a Report
To send a report without opening it in BCA, hover over it then select the Send Now quicklink. Doing so will open a screen with the Send Now window we saw earlier in After Running a Report, as well as any report prompts.
Sharing Reports
Let’s practice sharing this report. Remember that the recipient will need to log into BCA.
Click the Share icon (J) or, from the Report Home drop-down (I), select Share. A new window will open.
Copy and paste the link into an email. Clicking Email Link will try to open or reopen your email program.
If you want to embed the report as an iframe in a web page, click Embed, adjust the settings, then copy and paste the link as needed.
Return to the BCA home screen and click the My Subscriptions folder. Unlike Send Now, the Share feature saves any shared links in your My Subscriptions folder that contain data, meaning links to a report with prompted results, not just a report template.
You may want to delete these links after a certain amount of time to keep your My Subscriptions folder looking clean; however, deleting a link from My Subscriptions will break that link for the person you sent it to. To delete a link, check the corresponding box on the far right and click Unsubscribe.
Video Tutorial
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