Skedler Reports v4 - Basic and Advanced Settings

Modified on Sat, 25 Sep, 2021 at 5:35 PM

Introduction

To schedule email distribution of reports, you need to configure the email server settings. This article will help you to configure email settings, time zone settings and configure default logo for your reports.

Note: For Skedler v3.12 and below refer to How to configure Basic and Advanced settings for reports

Pre-requisites

A successful installation of Skedler is required. For Linux systems refer to Step-by-Step Skedler Installation Guide for Linux and for Windows system refer to Step-by-Step Skedler Installation Guide for Windows to install.

Step-by-Step Instruction

When you launch Skedler for the first time, the Settings page is displayed. You can access Basic and Advanced settings.

Basic Setup

Data source

You can configure the Data Source details required for Skedler report generation.

Select the Datasource as ELK Stack or Grafana

If you use Elasticsearch and Kibana, choose Datasource as ELK Stack,

Enter the name of the Datasource in the Name field.
Enter the Elasticsearch URL instance in the Elasticsearch URL field. By default the field is set with “http://localhost:9200” value.

Optionally, If the entered Elasticsearch URL has SSL certificate, enable the Elasticsearch SSL using the toggle button
- Specify the path to the PEM-format of the certificate and key in the SSL Certificate and SSL Key fields respectively.
- Specify the path to the PEM file of the certificate authority in the SSL Certificate Authorities field.
- Select the SSL Verification Mode as None to disregard the validity of SSL certificates, and Full to regard the validity of SSL certificates.

Enter the Kibana URL instance for Skedler report generation in the Kibana URL field. By default the field is set with “http://localhost:5601” value.
Enter the Kibana index in the Kibana Index field. By default the field is set with .kibana value
If Kibana has Security plugin or Basic auth configured, then turn “On” the Authentication using the toggle button and fill the following field values. If Kibana does not have any Security plugin or Basic auth configured turn “Off” the Authentication using the toggle button. By default Authentication is enabled.
- Select the Authentication Type from the drop-down.
- Enter the security username and password for Elasticsearch in the Elasticsearch Admin Username and Elasticsearch Admin Password field and for Kibana in the Kibana Admin Username and Kibana Admin Password respectively.

If you use Grafana, choose Datasource as Grafana,

Enter the name of the Datasource in the Name field.
Enter the Grafana URL instance in the Grafana URL field. By default, the field is set with “http://localhost:3000” value.
Optionally, If the entered Grafana URL has an SSL certificate, enable the Grafana SSL using the toggle button
- Specify the path to the PEM-format of the certificate and key in the SSL Certificate and SSL Key fields respectively
- Specify the path to the PEM file of the certificate authority in the SSL Certificate Authorities field.
- Select the SSL Verification Mode as None to disregard the validity of SSL certificates, and Full to regard the validity of SSL certificates

If Grafana has Security users, then turn “On” the Authentication using the toggle button and fill the following field values. If anonymous access is enabled in Grafana turn “Off” the Authentication using the toggle button. By default Authentication is enabled.
You can now use two methods to authenticate Grafana,
Basic Login (or) API LoginBasic Login (or) API Login
- To let Grafana users login Skedler using Basic Login, enable check box Enable Grafana User Authentication for Report Generation
- Enter the security username and password for Grafana in the Grafana Admin Username and Grafana Admin Password field respectively.
- Click Test and Save to test and save the configuration. On successful configuration click Next button.
To use API Login, enable it and enter the API key. To create an API key in Grafana please refer the following link Grafana authentication via API key

Click Test and Save to test and save the configuration. On successful configuration click the Next button.

If you want to export the dashboard as Excel, click Export to Excel toggle button. Once you click on the toggle button, you can see the list of data sources that are present in your grafana server.

In order to export to excel, click on each data source and configure it by providing username and password. Then, click on Test and Save individually.
Now, you can successfully create reports and export them as an excel sheet.

Note:

Right now, the following data sources are supported

Elasticsearch
Prometheus
MySQL
InfluxDB
PostgreSQL

Notification Channel

Select the Notification Channel from the drop-down.

For Email Settings, choose Notification Channel as Mail,

Enter the name of the notification channel in the Name field.
By default Supported Service is set to Others. Choose one of the following email services.

If you use a standard SMTP server, choose Others.

- Enter the outgoing email server in the Outgoing Server field.
- Enter the Port for the email server
- Enable Use SSL toggle button to use SSL to connect to email server.
- Enter the email id of the sender in the Sender’s Email field (this is the email id from which all the reports are sent) to configure the outgoing mail settings.
- Enable Password using toggle button if the SMTP server has authentication.
- Enter the password in the Password field.
- Enter an email address for the Admin Email field. This is the email to which a warning message will be sent if the reports are empty.
If you use Gmail, choose Gmail
- Enter the email id of the sender in the Sender’s Email ID field (this is the email id from which all the reports are sent) to configure the outgoing mail settings.
- Enter the password in the Password field.
- Enter an email address for the Admin Email field. This is the email to which a warning message will be sent if the reports are empty.
If you use Amazon SES, choose SES, SES-US-EAST-1, SES-US-WEST-1 or
- Enter the email id of the sender in the Sender’s Email ID field (this is the email id from which all the reports are sent) to configure the outgoing mail settings
- Enter the username in the Username field.
- Enter the password in the Password field.
- Enter an email address for the Admin Email field. This is the email to which a warning message will be sent if the reports are empty.
If you use other Amazon SES, choose SES Other Settings
- Enter the outgoing email server in the Outgoing Server field.
- Enter the Port for the email server
- Enable Use SSL toggle button to use SSL to connect to email server.
- Enter the email id of the sender in the Sender’s Email field (this is the email id from which all the reports are sent) to configure the outgoing mail settings.
- Enter the username in the Username field.
- Enable Password using toggle button if the SES server has authentication.
- Enter the password in the Password field.
- Enter an email address for the Admin Email field. This is the email to which a warning message will be sent if the reports are empty.

For Slack Settings, choose Notification Channel as Slack,

Enter the name of the notification channel in the Name field.
Enter the Legacy token that was generated using your Slack API to the Token field.
Enter the user or channel name to the Admin field. A warning message will be sent to the configured user or the channel if the reports are empty.

2. Click Save and Test button to test the configuration. On successful configuration click the Create Report button to create the report definition.

Advanced Setup

Timezone

By default timezone is set with the Skedler server time. Time Zone is used for scheduling the report.

Proxy Settings

If the Internet connection requires a proxy server set the Proxy Settings details.

1. Select the Proxy Type by default No Proxy is selected. If the Proxy Type is Automatic Proxy then it takes the system configured proxy or if the Proxy Type is Manual Proxy specify the protocol, server name or proxy IP, and port. If the proxy setting requires user authentication, enter the username and password in the Username and Password fields.

2. Click Save button.

Report Logo

Optionally, you can configure a default logo for the scheduled reports. This logo will be used in the PDF reports.

1. Click Select image from the Logo field to upload the logo.

2. Click Save to save the uploaded image.

Custom Parameters

Optionally, you can add custom parameters to your report. Custom parameter allows you to add a dynamic key with a specific value. Where you can define the parameters name and value in report output directory, report title and merge parameters while sending out an email. This parameter name will be replaced by the value in the PDF reports.