Robot/REPORTS

Robot/REPORTS: The Complete Automated Report Management Solution
Are you drowning in a sea of paper reports? Are your users aware of the costs involved—printing, archiving, retrieving, and disposal? Now is the time to get those costs under control.

Robot/REPORTS is the package you need to make it happen. Robot/REPORTS automated operations software provides the total solution to the problems of System i report management. It can cut dramatically the number of pages printed, eliminate the costs of bursting and sorting reports, transform your report archives from piles of dusty paper to easily accessed storage media, and safeguard your company’s confidential data.

Great Online Viewing Options
Robot/REPORTS report management software makes it easy for users to get information from any System i workstation. Recipients can use Robot/REPORTS’ interfaces to access the list of reports they are authorized to see—a list that makes viewing new reports and retrieving old ones a snap.

The Robot/REPORTS Robot Browser Interface lets recipients view and work with their reports and other information across multiple servers from a single location using a Web browser and a PC, laptop, or PDA. Users can view, save, download, edit, annotate, and print their reports using the Robot Browser Interface. And, they can add their favorite reports to their list of commonly performed tasks for quick, easy access.

The Robot/REPORTS PC interface lets recipients work with reports in a familiar, easy-to-use PC format. Users can quickly scan for information; add notes to reports; freeze, copy, and move report titles and columns; download reports into spreadsheets; or print a copy.
 

Convert Reports To PDF Or HTML Output
PDF and HTML are ideal file formats for report management because you can post the reports on any intranet or Internet Web site. With PDF, what you see at one end is what they see at the other. And, you can view and print a PDF file from any computer that has the free Adobe Acrobat Reader installed.

Sophisticated Report Bundling
Robot/REPORTS bursts reports automatically to produce segment reports and summary reports. It can bundle the reports for each recipient and print the report bundle at any network printer.

A Useful Report Archive
Robot/REPORTS automated operations software organizes your report archive to make sure you know what reports you have archived and where they are. Robot/REPORTS lets you archive your reports on many different archive media. It tracks disk, optical disk, and tape storage, while also supporting paper or microfiche output. In addition, Robot/REPORTS allows the report administrator to define custom indexes to speed information retrieval.

You choose the archive strategy for each report: how long the report should be kept online for instant access, how long it should be kept in short-term storage, and how long it should be kept in long-term storage.

Report Accountability
If report management is your responsibility, you want an automated operations software package that can account for every report processed. Robot/REPORTS maintains a complete history of every report it processes. And, interruptions won’t force you to rerun a report—Robot/REPORTS lets you restart processing where it left off.

You’ll be on top of report security as well. The report access history display lists everyone who viewed or printed a report with the date and time of each access. It also identifies the reports that could be eliminated—the ones no one looks at.

OPAL To Build The Reports You Want
Robot/REPORTS comes with OPerator Assistance Language (OPAL), our unique language for our System i automated operations software. OPAL lets you write simple procedures to build the reports you really want. OPAL can read a report line by line and react to the information in it. Based on your specifications, OPAL can include or exclude report pages and/or lines. It also can execute programs and commands, pass schedule information to Robot/SCHEDULE, or send a text, e-mail, or pager message using Robot/ALERT.

Use Robot/ALERT To E-mail Reports Automatically
With the Robot/REPORTS interface to Robot/ALERT, our system event notification software, you can send your reports to any PC or person on your intranet, or the Internet, automatically. All you do is specify the output option in Robot/REPORTS and enter valid mailbox names. Robot/ALERT can e-mail PDF or HTML files to any mailbox defined in your mail system. No additional setup is necessary on the System i.

Schedule Your Report Distribution Automatically
Robot/REPORTS works with Robot/SCHEDULE, the job scheduler and batch management system to automatically create report jobs for you to schedule. Robot/SCHEDULE uses the sophisticated report distribution functions in Robot/REPORTS. You can use Robot/SCHEDULE's work calendars and system-wide reserved variables (including operator on duty, or job date) in your report segmenting procedures to create a single set of operating information to control your system.

Customize Your Report Layouts with Forms and Graphics
Use Robot/REPORTS with Robot/TRANSFORM, the i5/OS output-to-PDF software, to burst large reports by customer number, invoice number, and more. After a forms package graphic is applied to each section, Robot/TRANSFORM can convert each ASCII-format spooled file into a PDF file and distribute it to the IFS. You also can use Robot/REPORTS with Robot/TRANSFORM to archive ASCII and AFP spooled files to tape. And, Robot/TRANSFORM can convert IFS files and all graphic spooled files created by applications that generate PCL, AFP, and SCS output.