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Distribution of user-specific reports

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Level 1
Greetings! Win a beer at the next leap we both attend! We distribute many periodic reports, including many that run as $$USER.ID. Alas, the utility of these distributions is greatly diminished by my inability to figure out how to get the file that is attached to filter on the user to whom the report is sent. Each user on the distro gets a email with a link to a report filtered for only their tasks, or their projects, as well as an attachment that lists those records for the user under whose access rights the report was run when it was distributed. Alas, as every security analyst will confirm, the first thing a user does when they get an email with an attachment is jump to the attachment and open it. The second thing that the user does is send an email to me stating that they were sent the wrong report. The report can only be run for distribution with the access rights of a specific user, and the distribution must contain an attachment of some kind. What am I missing? Thanks! ~Jeff Jeff Rieth Fujifilm Medical Systems
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5 Replies

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Level 2
I've contacted WF about the same issue and was told there wasn't a work around. I would love to know if someone has found a solution. I would event settle for the option of excluding the attachment and forcing people to follow the link instead since that is $$USER.ID specific. Amy Thomas Ball State University - Mktg

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Level 10
Well, since you've put a beer on the line, Jeff... Although I wouldn't recommend it, you could share the report with each end user, then teach them how they can make a copy of it and schedule their copy (i.e. with their $$USER.ID) to send it to themselves at whatever cadence they see fit. Later (perhaps over said beer) we could then discuss how to clean up the resulting bazillion copied reports, and philosophize the pros and cons of emailing online reports. Regards, Doug Doug Den Hoed - AtAppStore

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Level 4
OK, so it would seem that the answer to my question, what am I missing, is nothing. Although Amy responded first, my original offer was unclear on this point, so both Amy and Doug win. With respect to why we would email a report that reiterates what is more readily available in Home, all I can say is that email and automobiles are similar in that we know they're killing us, but we can't give them up. :( Jeff Rieth Fujifilm Medical Systems

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Level 10
Hah -- indeed, Jeff! Wish I had a better out of the box solution to offer, but sometime's it's helpful to at least have confirmation of what's not (really) possible so you can stop banging your head. I'm also happy to split my pint with @Amy Thomas . Cheers, Doug Doug Den Hoed - AtAppStore

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Community Advisor
This isn't a complete solution for this particular use case because it doesn't answer the requirement for a report attachment on the e-mail; but for users with the same challenge and can get by with *just* the recurring delivery of a report link that uses the viewer wildcard, there is an easy solution: Design your report in Workfront using the $$USER.ID filter, but don't use Workfront to schedule recurring deliveries. Instead, setup a recurring e-mail to your audience in Outlook (or your email application of choice), and include a link to the report in the subject line or body of that email template. William English T-Mobile
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