How to Broadcast a BEx Report through E-mail.

This is a step by step guide on how to broadcast a BEx report to the E-mail of specific users.

1) Open the BEx query in BEx Query Designer.

2) Go to Menu “Query->Publish->” and Click on “BEx Broadcaster”

3) Internet Explorer (or any default browser) window will open with a login screen for the “SAP NetWeaver Portal”

4) Login using the BW login credentials of the User using which you want the BEx report to be broadcasted.

5) You will see a screen as below which shows the list of available broadcast settings for the particular query:

6) Click on “Create New Setting” button.

7) There will be four tabs

     a. Recipient(s)

     b. Texts

     c. General Precalculation

     d. Filter Navigation

Recipients

You have different options for entering recipients:

• User:
• Users in Roles:

Note: If an e-mail address for a user that you have specified under User or User in Role has not been maintained in user maintenance, the user will not receive the distributed file as an e-mail. Instead the user gets a message in the Business Workplace (transaction SO01).

• E-Mail Addresses:
• Authorized User:
• Language:
• User-specific: If you schedule the broadcast setting in the background (for example for a specific time), then you can generate the document user specifically. The system generates the document for each of the specified recipients with their personal settings (date format, language) and data authorizations. Recipients that are only specified with e-mail addresses are excluded from this. For this recipient, the system generates the document with the settings for the authorized user.

 
Texts – Here you can make the following entries:

• Subject:
• Importance:
• Contents:

General Precalculation

• Variable Assignment: You can create values for the variables for the query that are ready for input or you can specify the Web application. The query or Web application is then precalculated with these variable values. You are able to select an existing variant for the query. The query is precalculated with the values of the variant.

Filter Navigation

On the Filter Navigation tab page you can specify characteristics or a control query so that the system precalculates several documents with different filter settings from the same query or Web application.  These filter values provide you with a navigation option in the precalculated document. You can select the filter values using dropdown boxes in the navigation block.

You can make the following settings:

• No Filtering: The system precalculates an unfiltered document.
• Filtering Using Selected Characteristics: The system precalculates several documents with various filter settings according to your chosen settings. Highlight the desired characteristic and specify the desired filter value using Create Filter Values. You can specify a maximum of two characteristics.
• Filtering Using Control Query: The system precalculates several documents with various filter settings. The filters correspond to the characteristic combinations of the control query that you specified. Specify the desired control query in the Control Query field either manually or using  Selection.

8) Give a description for the broadcast setting

9) Select the Distribution type. In our case it would be “Broadcast Email”.

10) Select the output format. We will select “XML (MS Excel)” which is the Microsoft Excel Format.

11) We can enable the “As ZIP file” checkbox to send the file as a zipped attachment to the recipients email.

12) Recipients: Specify the email addresses of the users to whom you want the report to be broadcasted in the “Email Addresses” field.

13) Texts: Specify the Email “Subject” and the Email “Contents”. The subject and contents specified here will be reflected in the Subject and contents of the email delivered to the recipient.

14) General Precalculation: If the query has any input variables, you will have to create a variable assignment and assign values for the variable. The broadcasted report will be precalculated for the variable values which you assign in this tab.

Select VAR_01 as shown in the below screenshot and click on “Create”.

           
     You will see the variable screen where you have to assign values for the variables and click on ok. (Sample variable assignment shown below)

15) The Filter Navigation tab is used to apply filters (if any) to the query before precalculating and broadcasting the query. We can leave it blank if no filters are to be applied before broadcasting.

16) Now save the broadcast setting by giving a technical name.

17) The next step is to schedule the broadcast after specifying the recipients, the contents of the email, and the variable assignment. Click on the “Schedule” button. Enable the “Create New Scheduling” check box, and select the time to schedule the broadcast and click “Transfer”.

Scheduling the Broadcasts Automatically:

The scheduling of broadcasts can be automated with the help of a program and through process chains. Create a process chain and include the ABAP program “RSRD_BROADCAST_BATCH”. This program can be used to schedule the broadcasts in the background without any use intervention.

Create a variant for this program and give the technical name of the Broadcast setting for the selection variable “S_SETTNG (Broadcast Setting)”.

Now schedule the process chain at the particular time (may be periodic) at which you want the broadcast to be sent.