Scheduling reports by email

A schedule emails a fresh copy of a report on a regular cadence, so the people who need it get the file without anyone opening Stockie and clicking Export. Each email is built from the report at the moment it is sent, using the view you chose, and goes to the email recipients you pick.

If you only need a file now and then, a one-off export may suit you better. See Exporting reports.

Which reports can be scheduled

These reports can be scheduled, as long as your plan includes them and they appear in your Reports  list:

• Stockout
• Stockout risk
• Overstocked
• Dead stock
• Sales performance
• ABC analysis
• Inventory value
• Variant report
• Inventory adjustments
• Purchase orders
• Purchase order line items
• Purchase order receipts
• Transfers
• Transfer line items

The Transfers and Transfer line items reports can be scheduled once transfer setup is complete. Stocktake line exports are not available as a schedule.

Not sure which report you want in your inbox? Which report answers what walks through them.

Setting up a schedule

You can start a schedule from two places:

• On a report page, click Schedule at the top of the page, next to Export. Schedule is there even when the report currently has no rows.
• In Reports , click Schedule on the report's row.

A window opens titled Schedule followed by the report name. To set it up:

1. Under Report view, choose what the file should contain. All is the whole report with no filters, and any views you have saved on that report are listed too. For Inventory value, the choices are On hand inventory and Available inventory, plus your saved views. If you opened the window from a report page, it starts on the view you were looking at.
2. Under File format, choose CSV (.csv) or Excel (.xlsx).
3. Under Email recipients, search by name or email and select one or more people.
4. Choose a Frequency, then the day it should go out (see below).
5. Choose a Time and a Timezone.
6. Check the Next run line, which shows exactly when the first email will be sent.
7. Click Save schedule.

Once a report has a schedule, its Schedule action reads Edit schedule instead.

The view decides what is in the file

A scheduled email uses a saved view, not whatever happens to be filtered on screen. If you want a filtered report by email, such as one supplier or one location, you can save that view on the report first and then choose it under Report view.

The view's filters, search, sorting and columns are all carried into the file. If you later change the saved view, future emails follow the change, as the window notes: "Changes to this view apply to future emails."

Frequency and timing

A few details are worth knowing:

• Time is picked in 30-minute steps.
• A new schedule starts as Monthly, on the Last day of the month, at 9:00 am in your store's timezone. You can change any of these before saving.
• If you pick a day that some months do not have, such as the 31st, those months are skipped. Last day of the month always sends, whatever the month's length.
• The schedule follows the local clock in the timezone you chose, so a 9:00 am report stays at 9:00 am when the clocks change for daylight saving.

Recipients

Scheduled reports go to the email recipients you have already added in Settings → Notifications , under Recipients. The schedule window cannot add new people itself. The Manage recipients in Settings link below the field opens Settings in a new tab, and once you have added someone there, the Refresh link beside Email recipients brings them into the list without losing what you have entered so far.

Only email recipients are listed. Slack recipients do not receive scheduled reports.

Every schedule needs at least one recipient. If you remove a recipient in Settings, they stop receiving the report and everyone else on the schedule carries on. If that leaves a schedule with no email recipients at all, the schedule is paused (see below).

What the email contains

Each recipient gets an email from Stockie Inventory Management with the subject line set to the report name followed by "report", for example "Stockout Risk report".

The email carries a Download button for the file, rather than an attachment, and a line showing when the file was generated, noting that it uses the data available at run time. The download link lasts for one week, so it is worth saving the file somewhere if you want to keep it.

Stockie does not keep an archive of past scheduled emails, so each file is available only from its own email.

Very large Variant report files requested in Excel format may arrive as a CSV instead, and the email explains when that has happened.

How dates are worked out for each send

If your saved view uses a relative date range, such as Last 30 days or Previous calendar month, the dates are worked out afresh for every email, counting from the day the email is scheduled to go out, in your store's timezone. A view set to Previous calendar month on a schedule that sends on the 1st, for example, covers the whole of the month just finished each time.

A Custom range stays fixed, so every email covers the same dates.

The Sales performance and ABC analysis periods are also counted back from the scheduled send date.

Reports built from your forecast, such as Stockout, Stockout risk, Overstocked, Dead stock and Inventory value, show the position as of the last forecast run, just as they do on screen. See Report freshness for which reports work this way.

Editing a schedule

Click Edit schedule on the report page or on the report's row in Reports . The window opens with the current settings, and you can change anything, including the view, format, recipients and timing. Click Save schedule to apply the changes to future emails.

When a schedule is paused

Stockie pauses a schedule, rather than sending an empty or misleading file, when something it depends on is no longer there. A schedule is paused when:

• the saved view it uses is deleted
• it no longer has any email recipients
• the saved view contains filters or a date range that can no longer be used
• the report is no longer available on your plan, or no longer available for your store
• a Variant report is too large to export, above 100,000 rows

A paused schedule sends nothing until it is resumed. There is no separate pause or resume switch, and the report pages and Reports  list look the same whether a schedule is active or paused, so the way to check is to click Edit schedule. A paused schedule shows a banner at the top of the window explaining what paused it.

To resume, fix what the banner describes, for example by choosing another view or adding a recipient, then click Save and resume.

Deleting a schedule

On a report page, open More actions and click Delete schedule. From Reports , click the ... menu on the report's row and choose Delete schedule.

Stockie asks you to confirm: "Future emails for this report will stop. This can't be undone." Click Delete to remove it. Emails already sent are not affected, and their download links keep working until they expire.

Limits

• Each report has one schedule. To send the same report to different people, you can add them all as recipients of that schedule.
• Every email on a schedule uses the same view, file format and recipients.
• Schedules send on the day and time you set. There is no option to send one immediately, although Export on the report page emails a file straight away.
• Download links expire after one week, and there is no history of past sends.