Scheduled Reports and Notifications

You can schedule an Alert Logic report to run periodically and receive an email notification when the report is generated. If you need to generate a compliance report on a regular schedule, for example, you can schedule the report and then receive the report or a confirmation that the report generated successfully. Scheduled reports also offer Alert Logic partners a way to generate reports regularly and deliver them to their customers.

Reports generated from schedules are saved and available for review and download. When the report is ready, a notification can be sent to your email, emails of other users, or even a third-party application. Notifications to a third-party application require a templated connection.

For more information about the Notifications feature, see Notifications and Manage Notifications.

Create a report schedule and notification

After you set up the report you want to schedule, you can create the schedule and subscribe users and/or a templated connectionto receive a notification when the report is ready.

To create a report schedule and notification:

  1. From the Reports page in the Alert Logic console, access the report you want to schedule.
  2. Set up the report criteria if the report is interactive.
  3. Click SCHEDULE THIS REPORT to open the Schedule a Report page.
    4. Some reportscannot be scheduled because they are tabular reports primarily downloaded as CSV files not PDF files. If the report cannot be scheduled, the option appears grayed out.
  4. Type a descriptive name for the report schedule—for example, "Daily Health Summary Report for Security Team."
  5. If you want the schedule to be active, leave Schedule Is Active turned on. Turn it off if you want to save the schedule but not activate it yet.
  6. Select a report option. Available options can vary according to report contents.
    • Summary (PDF File)—Contains the report visualization only in a PDF file.
    • Full (PDF File)—Contains the full report, including visualizations and any tabular data, in a PDF file.
    • Data Only (CSV File)—Contains all data fields for the report in a CSV file that is compressed with gzip.
    • Summary and Data (Compressed File)— Contains the summary report (visualizations only) in a PDF file and the data fields in a CSV file. The files are compressed with gzip.
  7. Specify how often you want to generate the report. For reports designed to be generated daily, weekly, or monthly, the frequency is selected for you.
    • Daily—Every day, generates the report for the previous day.
    • Weekly—On the day you select, generates the report for the previous calendar week (Monday—Sunday).
    • Monthly—On the day of the month you select, generates the report for the previous calendar month.
    • Run Once—Available for non-interactive reports only, generates the report immediately for the period you select. For a monthly report, for example, you can choose to generate a report for the last month or an earlier one.
  8. Select the time you want Alert Logic to generate the report, using the 24-hour clock standard. You can schedule some reports only during specific hours to avoid generating an empty or incomplete report. Alert Logic schedules the report in the time zone reported by your web browser.
  9. (Optional) Under Report Settings, check the report criteria. This area appears only for interactive reports. If you want to change the settings, click CANCEL to go back to the report and change the criteria there. To change the report settings for an existing schedule, set up the report with the new settings, create the schedule, and then delete the old schedule if you want.
  10. To subscribe users to receive a notification email, click User(s), and then:
    1. Under Notification Delivery, select the users that you want to receive the notification. The list includes your name and user names in the customer account. You can use the search bar to help you find recipients.
    2. (Optional) Customize the Email Subject. You can change the text and insert variables enclosed with double braces: {{variable}}. For the variable list, see Email subject variables.
    3. If you want to attach the generated report to the email, select the Attach File check box. If you leave it cleared, the email provides a link to the Downloads page instead, with the list filtered to display the report generated by the schedule.
      4. The report attachment is unencrypted and may contain sensitive information about your organization.
  11. To subscribe a templated connection to receive a notification, click Templated Connection, and then select a configured templated connection under Notification Delivery. The URL in the templated connection will receive the payload listed.
  12. Click SAVE.

Email subject variables

To customize the subject line of an email notification, you can add the following variables to the Email Subject field:

Variable Description Example
{{artifact_create_date}} Date and time when the report was generated 2020-05-11 12:00 GMT
{{cadence}} Frequency of report generation and when it is run Daily, 12:00 GMT
{{cid}} Customer account identifier 12345678
{{customer_name}} Customer name of the Alert Logic account where the report was generated XYZ Corporation
{{report_id}} Report identifier 20200511-120000-652A6542-D5F7-3E0C-7290-AD4F789B61E0
{{report_type}} Name of scheduled report as displayed in the Alert Logic console Daily Health Summary
{{schedule_id}} Schedule identifier 652A6542-D5F7-3E0C-7290-AD4F789B61E0
{{scheduled_report_name}} Report schedule name Daily Health Summary Report for Security Team

View and manage report schedules and notifications

You can view and manage report schedules and their notifications from the Notifications page. To access the Notifications page, click the Settings icon () in the Alert Logic console, and then click Notifications. The Schedules tab on the Notifications page lists existing report schedules and the number of recipients notified when the scheduled report is generated. A schedule does not appear for non-interactive reports generated with the Run Once option.

See Manage Notifications for information about how to:

  • Filter the list
  • View report schedule details
  • Delete report schedules and notifications
  • Edit report schedules and notifications
  • View the interactive report related to a schedule
  • Open a list of reports generated by a schedule

View list of reports generated by a schedule

The Downloads page lists all reports generated by your report schedules. From this page, you can download and manage generated reports. To access the Downloads page, click the Downloads tab on the Reports page.

The list includes all reports in your customer account and its managed accounts. You can narrow the set of reports listed by using the filters in the left navigation.

Filter the report downloads list

The Downloads page lists all reports generated from report schedules. You can apply filters to narrow the list to a specific set of reports.

To filter the report downloads list:

  1. In the left navigation, click any of the filters to narrow the list. Available filters vary according to the schedules in your environment and filters you select.
    • Display—You can use this filter to display the latest reports only.
    • Schedule—You can use this filter to display only the reports generated by a specific schedule
  2. To search for a filter, type a filter value in Search filters. For example, you can quickly find downloads for a specific schedule by typing part of the schedule name.
  3. To clear filters and start over, delete text from Search filters (if applicable) or select CLEAR ALL FILTERS.

Search by date to filter the list

You can use the date range drop-down menu at the top of the downloads list to filter the reports by generation date. Click the menu and then use the calendar to select a date range.

Download a report generated by a schedule

To the right of the report you want to download, click Download. If you select more than one report, the download is a compressed file containing the selected report files.

Delete reports generated by a schedule

Click the icon next to one or more reports you want to delete, and then click the DELETE icon.

If you want to delete all reports currently listed, select the check box at the top of the list. On the bar that appears at the bottom of the page, click the DELETE icon.