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Reports & Exporting Feed Data

There are several ways to export feed data and optionally turn it into a printable report.

Manual Exports and Reports

When a feed is selected in EventMeister's left hand pane, its current contents is displayed in the right-hand side and two manual export options become available in the File menu: Export to File and Export to Browser. Both of these operations draw their data directly from the right hand pane, so they reflect viewing preferences such as sorting, column selection and ordering, and filtering.

The first operation, Export to File, outputs the data to file in one of four formats: tab-separated text, comma-separated text (csv - handy for importing into Excel and other spreadsheets), XML, and RSS.

The second operation, Export to Browser, outputs the data to a temporary file in HTML form, and opens that file in your default browser. You can choose from a selection of templates that determine how the html is formatted. If you don't like the existing templates and have the necessary skills (XSL) you can either modify them or create your own.

Click on the links below for more details:

• Exporting Feeds
• Displaying Reports

Automated Exports and Reports

There are two ways to export data on a regular basis without manual intervention: log output notifications and automated reports.

Log Output Notifications

This method involves creating a notification that writes qualifying data out to a file. If desired, the file can be emailed to a given recipient according to a schedule. The key features of this method are:

• The notification does not clear the associated entries from the feed, it just duplicates them in the nominated file
• The file has a limited size - when that size is reached, it is renamed with the ".old" extension and a new file is started
• The same notification can be applied to multiple feeds, allowing qualifying entries to be collected together in a single file
• This method is recommended for cases where only certain feed items need be exported

Automated Reports

This method is configured through the Reporting page of the feed properties dialog, which is only available in licensed versions of EventMeister.

The key features of this method are:

• It exports the entire feed contents to file (in text, csv, XML, RSS or HTML format), emptying the feed store in the process
• It can be set to trigger according to a schedule, or when the feed store reaches a certain size, or both.
• The file generated by a report is never over-written or deleted - when the report runs again a unique count will be appended to the name
• It's especially recommended in cases where the feed capacity has been set to "unlimited". By setting the report to trigger according to store size, you're essentially implementing automated archival that prevents the store from growing to an unmanageable size, while preserving a history of collected data in a human-readable form.