I have data coming in to a MySQL instance and I want to be able to analyze time-seperated data and generate a report based on that. What would be the best software/method to make use of? Would Jasper reports be of use here?
Free/open source would be preferable. The reports can go out to a number of preset emails assigned based on the data being reported on. For example, Site A which will have a report sent out every hour based on the incoming data would go out to a managed list of 4 or 5 people, and so forth.
I think you should take a look at DBxtra, and specifically at the Schedule Server component which lets you send reports in emails automatically and unattended every certain time, although it's not free (there is a fully functional trial version however).
If you insist on it being free, i think that you can use any option you want (i prefer Jasper Reports), but you'll need to create and send the emails by hand or make a solution yourself as the option to send emails automatically it's not present on the free tiers.
P.S.: I'm a DBxtra evangelist.
Related
So lately I have been trying to figure out if there's a way to find emails inside the phone mail box(either default one, or a chosen one, doesn't really matter at this point), that was sended too or by a specific email address.
I have read about enough_mail and imap_client but both of them offer an option to fetch a range of messages, without the option to filter by the sender.
Its worth mentioning that I wouldn't want to get a range of lets say one year emails (which also couldn't really be estimated using a number to decide what amount of messages I want to fetch, what I saw the packages offer) and iterate through them and check, its not efficient at all.
*A solution to send an email using flutter is not relevant AT ALL
Is there any way to do it using this packages, or any other options?
Thank you.
I have a scheduled instance emailing to a user. The instance works fine and user gets email. But the data in the report attached to the email is stale. It is missing item codes that do show up in the report if you go view it directly in web browser at BO server.
If I create a new instance scheduled to send to me - data looks up to date and good to go. If I add myself on the instance sending stale report and re-run the instance, I also get the stale version.
I'm worried about how whatever this is could be impacting other reports/users in the company without our knowledge. And also want to fix this one instance.
Is there some caching or other options that could be causing this? Why is the instance sending stale data?
Thanks!!
I figured this out. Turns out someone added record select formulas to the base report but did not re-create the scheduled instance. I looked at meta data from CI_INFOOBJECTS etc to see the record select formula on the instance. It does not match the updated record select on the base report.
This highlights a great best practice to keep in mind in this environment. KEEP YOUR FILTERS OUT OF CRYSTAL REPORTS! Keep your record selection and data transform logic inside SQL server in stored procs or views. That way you can update your report filter criterias without have to re create every scheduled report instance after every little report change :)
I am asking for advice on possibly better solutions for the part of the project I'm working on. I'll first give some background and then my current thoughts.
Background
Our clients can use my company's products to generate potentially large data sets for use in their industry. When the data sets are generated, the clients will file a processing request to us.
We want to send the clients a summary email which contains some statistical charts as well as sampling points from the data sets so they can do some initial quality control work. If the data sets are of bad quality, they don't need to file any request.
One problem is that the charts and sampling points can be potentially too large to be sent in an email. The charts and the sampling points we want to include in the emails are pictures. Although we can use low-quality format such as JPEG to save space, we cannot control how many data sets would be included in the summary email, so the total size could still exceed the normal email size limit.
In terms of technologies, we are mainly developing in Python on Ubuntu 14.04.
Goals of the Solution
In general, we want to present a report-like thing to the clients to do some initial QA. The report may contains external links but does not need to be very interactive. In other words, a static report should be fine.
We want to reduce the steps or things that our clients must do to read the report. For example, if the report can be just an email, the user only needs to 1). log in and 2). open the email. If they use a client software, they may skip 1). and just open and begin to read.
We also want to minimize the burden of maintaining extra user accounts for both us and our clients. For example, if the solution requires us to register a new user account, this solution is, although still acceptable, not ranked very high.
Security is important because our clients don't want their reports to be read by unauthorized third parties.
We want the process automated. We want the solution to provide programming interface so that we can automate the report sending/sharing process.
Performance is NOT a critical issue. Our user base is not large. I think at most in hundreds. They also don't generate data that frequently, at most once a week. We don't need real-time response. Even a delay of a few hours is still acceptable.
My Current Thoughts of Solution
Possible solution #1: In-house web service. I can set up a server machine and develop our own web service. We put the report into our database and the clients can then query via the Internet.
Possible solution #2: Amazon Web Service. AWS is quite mature but I'm not sure if they could be expensive because so far we just wanna share a report with our remote clients which doesn't look like a big deal to use AWS.
Possible solution #3: Google Drive. I know Google Drive provides API to do uploading and sharing programmatically, but I think we need to register a dedicated Google account to use that.
Any better solutions??
You could possibly use AWS S3 and Cloudfront. Files can easily be loaded into S3 using the AWS SDK's and API. You can then use the API to generate secure links to the files that can only be opened for a specific time and optionally from a specific IP.
Files on S3 can also be automatically cleaned up after a specific time if needed using lifecycle rules.
Storage and transfer prices are fairly cheap with AWS and remember that the S3 storage cost indicated is by the month so if you only have an object loaded for a few days then you only pay for a few days.
S3: http://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing
Cloudfront: https://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/pricing/
Here's a list of the SDK's for AWS:
https://aws.amazon.com/tools/#sdk
Or you can use their command line tools for Windows batch or powershell scripting:
https://aws.amazon.com/tools/#cli
Here's some info on how the private content urls are created:
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/PrivateContent.html
I will suggest to built this service using mix of your #1 and #2 options. You can do the processing and for transferring the data leverage AWS S3 which is quiet cheap.
Example: 100GB costs like approx $3.
Also AWS S3 will be beneficial as you are covered for any disaster on your local environment your data will be safe in S3.
For security you can leverage data encryption and signed URLS in AWS S3.
I'm developing an application via which one can send sms by directing it to sms server. My problem is I'm supposed to store the messages sent with date,time and also with the names of users to whom the message was sent. What should I use to save that? database Or I should think f 'serialization'? Later on I'll have to display the records containing names of the users and sms according to date and time at which it was sent.
Suggest me something. Thanks.
It depends.
Database is all eggs in one basket and a bit more work to get the data in.
Writing the SMSs to a daily log file type format is much simpler and eggs in many daily files.
If you have to, often, produce fancy complicated reports then go database.
Or go log style now as you can always migrated your data and interface to database later if it becomes neccesary.
A database is your best bet for those kind of records in my opinion. When you have dates, names, other data and the need to relate it, a RDBMS generally will work the best.
If you need to do any kind of querying of your records, the database will win out over a simple serialized-object file; I'd only use the latter approach if you only ever need all of your data at once.
If you want a simple, lightweight DB I'd suggest looking at SQLite, for small apps like what you're describing the convenience and ease-of-use are a major win over using a full-scale 'production' DB engine like MySQL or Postgres. See this answer for more on that.
We're programming a Testing Web Application for a University in ColdFusion with a MS SQL Backend.
Right now we have to manually take faxes sent to our fax machine and then find the account they are related to and input the info (the actual fax has to be found in a filing cabinet if we ever need to reference it again). What I would like to do is create a way for someone to fax to a certain number and then the fax be sent to an email account we specify.
If that worked properly we would need a way to get the email, store it somewhere on our servers and then link it to an account. The linking process would probably have to be manual and we are ok with that, but an easy way to view all the faxes sent to that email in our ColdFusion application in PDF form (searchable by the name we assign it) is what we are mainly looking for, so that we don't have to get the faxes on paper and file them by hand.
Is there a way to accomplish this? Preferably not through a paid service as we can program almost anything we need ourselves.
Hmm... have you tried services like eFax?
Why reinvent the wheel? Services like eFax and jConnect (there are several others, just Google "electronic fax service") are affordable and do half of what you are trying to do. Save yourself the effort and just spend a few bucks. You'll probably find out, too, that it will cost you less to just pay for the service than it would cost you to pay the developer to write the software.
So after you bite the bullet and sign up for an electronic faxing service, you just need an email account for it to send to, and to use CFPOP to check the inbox and download the attachments. The rest is a piece of cake.
From the sounds of it, I have built something identical to this faxing setup with Coldfusion.
After a few trials and errors I found best way to go is:
1) DIGITIZE INCOMING FAXES: Have all faxes either sent to an email address you can check via CF, or a network folder you save them on, which you can check with CF. You can absolutely keep your fax number and simply call forward incoming calls to your digital fax number.
2) PROCESS INCOMING FAXES When you find a new fax, it is best to process it and make a record of it. I store things like the file name, dig up the fax number it came from, check it against a list of known numbers, and have a routing table (in case it needs to go to someone).
3) PRINT AND ROUTE FAX Auto printing a document once in CF is possible via CF as well.
As for tables, I keep one to store each fax. I store the fax itself in a blob as well. Easy to replicate and move around, no big performance hit. I keep another table to store a list of incoming number profiles (like a caller ID table) to relate the number to a customer. I keep a table for routing rules, if an email comes from here, send it here. Last, but not least, if you have to manage multiple phone numbers, you can create multiple incoming profiles and file them.
Once you have each fax stored in the DB, you can do a lot with it and file/index/ store it digitally how you like. CFDOCUMENT will display disk based PDFs.
I ended up having to program something like this for custom routing options. It is possible to auto link items to certain files/folders/projects if you like as well with CF.
If you need to know anything else, ask, or we can discuss it off line if you need to keep some details private.
Agree with Adam. Don't create a bunch of problems for yourself - you'll save a lot of money and nerves by just using the existing service.
On the topic: I use Popfax and I kind of like it. It's comfy, gives you opportunities, discounts, contests and a lot of stuff you'd like if you'd be interested in. It's cheap (at least, 100% cheaper than your own software) and you can use it not only on PC, but also via mobile phone