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Generating data for External Report databases

You use External Report, available in the Estimating Management Console, to generate estimate data that you can use with reporting and business intelligence software to create reports and dashboards and to analyze your data in different ways. Data is generated and saved in an external report database in your SQL Server instance for each particular configuration, and is current when you generate it.

Note: Any errors that occur during data generation are written to the Windows Event Log.

You can generate data any time you want an updated snapshot of your estimate data.

Before you generate data for external report databases

To generate data for external report databases, you need to add configurations with the settings to use when generating estimate data. A configuration is a set of options used to generate data for external reports.

For more information, see Adding an External Report Database Configuration.

Note: If you generate data for a large number of estimates—for example, by running the Estimating External Report Database Generator—do so only when no other users are working with your Estimating database.

Generating data for multiple configurations

If you need to generate data many estimates all at once, run the Estimating External Report Database Generator to generate data for all the estimates included in your configurations.

Run the Estimating External Report Database Generator in one of the following ways:

In the Program Files\Sage Estimating\Sage Estimating [version] folder (or the folder where you installed Estimating), double-click Sage.Estimating.ExternalReportDBGenerator.exe.

Any errors encountered during data generation are reported in the Windows Console, as well as in the Windows Event Log.
Run Sage.Estimating.ExternalReportDBGenerator.exe from the Windows command line.

Create a task in the Windows Task Scheduler.

Note: Because you should generate data for many estimates only when no other users are working with the Estimating database, set the task to run at night (say, 1 am).

For information on creating tasks using the Task Scheduler, see the Windows help.

Generating data for one estimate at a time

You can generate external report data for one estimate at a time in either the Estimating application or in the Estimating Management Console.

In Sage Estimating, open the estimate for which you want to generate data, and then click the Generate Data button on the Reports ribbon.

Note: The Generate Data button is available only if the estimate is included in a configuration.
In the Estimating Management Console:
1. Click External Report.
2. From the configuration catalog pane, select a configuration.
3. If you need to make sure that the estimate information in the Create External Report Database Configuration pane is up to date, click the Refresh button () on the configuration catalog toolbar. (Normally, you won't need to refresh the pane because it is updated when you open the configuration.)
4. In the estimate grid in the Create External Report Database Configuration pane, click the [Generate] button for each estimate, as needed.