Request for response and discussion: Tessitura Report Server

I'm sure some of us who attended TLCC last year remember hearing that the Tessitura Report Server was due for an overhaul in version 14. I was hoping to hear about this in last week's development update, but I don't believe any news was shared. I think many of us would appreciate hearing some updates and specifics about what this is going to look like.

It would be especially nice to hear how various issues that have been raised on the forums and elsewhere will be addressed in the next version. Here's a short list of things I've read/talked about and/or experienced:

(Note: there are workarounds for many of these, but instead I'd like to learn what the potential solutions would be.)

1. Report server currently needs a user session to function--we want to run it as a service.

2. Report server does not tolerate connection failures and must be manually restarted in most fault cases.

3. PDF output of infomaker reports is reliant upon Windows printing services, which introduces another point of failure. Have you heard that the next version of PowerBuilder is slated to have PDF generation built-in?

4. Report server does not guarantee that emailed data was from the correct schedule. (If you have concurrency greater than 1, two simultaneously-scheduled InfoMaker-to-PDF reports can have their PDFs switched.) Controlling for this by setting concurrency to 1 means long-running reports can block execution.

5. Performance is tied to polling rate and concurrency. If your concurrency is set to 1 to control for issue 4, the TRS can run at maximum one report per minute. This is too slow! Reports that take 2 seconds to run still need to wait the full 60 seconds.

6. If the Report server is to become GUI-less, will the GUI-based controls be integrated into the client application? Are these controls even necessary?

7. Scheduled report email settings: CC/BCC fields, support for line breaks in body are desired.

  • I think we have seen all of these issues you describe.  One of the issues that we have seen is that email recipients can receive the wrong PDF attachment.  This can be embarrassing if this is sent to a external party.

  • Former Member
    Former Member $organization

    I’m not sure if this is what you intend to mean by #4, but when you have a series of reports that run in the same time period, when one report fails the other reports don’t print.  So one failed report blocks all other reports from running.

     

    From: Tessitura Technical Forum [mailto:forums-technical@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Nick Reilingh
    Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2016 11:43 PM
    To: Gloria Ormsby
    Subject: [Tessitura Technical Forum] Request for response and discussion: Tessitura Report Server

     

    I'm sure some of us who attended TLCC last year remember hearing that the Tessitura Report Server was due for an overhaul in version 14. I was hoping to hear about this in last week's development update, but I don't believe any news was shared. I think many of us would appreciate hearing some updates and specifics about what this is going to look like.

    It would be especially nice to hear how various issues that have been raised on the forums and elsewhere will be addressed in the next version. Here's a short list of things I've read/talked about and/or experienced:

    (Note: there are workarounds for many of these, but instead I'd like to learn what the potential solutions would be.)

    1. Report server currently needs a user session to function--we want to run it as a service.

    2. Report server does not tolerate connection failures and must be manually restarted in most fault cases.

    3. PDF output of infomaker reports is reliant upon Windows printing services, which introduces another point of failure. Have you heard that the next version of PowerBuilder is slated to have PDF generation built-in?

    4. Report server does not guarantee that emailed data was from the correct schedule. (If you have concurrency greater than 1, two simultaneously-scheduled InfoMaker-to-PDF reports can have their PDFs switched.) Controlling for this by setting concurrency to 1 means long-running reports can block execution.

    5. Performance is tied to polling rate and concurrency. If your concurrency is set to 1 to control for issue 4, the TRS can run at maximum one report per minute. This is too slow! Reports that take 2 seconds to run still need to wait the full 60 seconds.

    6. If the Report server is to become GUI-less, will the GUI-based controls be integrated into the client application? Are these controls even necessary?

    7. Scheduled report email settings: CC/BCC fields, support for line breaks in body are desired.




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  • +10 for everything in Nick's post!

  • I too would like to hear more about the Report Server overhaul. Resolving issues described in Nick's list - particularly #1-5 - is important to us. Thanks.