Reporting & Analytics · LessonBy Sneha I, ServiceNow Trainer, 8 yrs · Published · ServiceNow · all levels
Scheduled reports and distribution
Deliver reports to people who never log in, without generating a nightly storm of PDFs.
Quick answer
Deliver reports to people who never log in, without generating a nightly storm of PDFs.
Key takeaways
- Reports run with the owner permissions, not the recipient
- Small, focused outputs beat large exports
- Group recipients keep distribution lists current
- Generation and delivery are separate, check both when troubleshooting
How distribution works
A scheduled report record picks a report or dashboard, a schedule, a format such as PDF or CSV, and recipients as users, groups or an email address list. Delivery runs as a background job.
Keeping it useful
Send the smallest thing that answers the question. A single score with a trend line beats a forty page list export that nobody opens, and it costs far less to generate.
Common problems
Most scheduled report tickets have the same causes.
- The report runs as the schedule owner, so recipients may see data the owner can see
- Large exports time out, filter by date or reduce columns
- Recipients in a group inherit changes to that group, which is usually what you want
- Check the email log when a report does not arrive, delivery and generation are separate steps
Practice challenge
+0 XPStreak ×0
Question 1 of 2
Whose permissions apply to a scheduled report?
Frequently asked questions
Can recipients get personalised data?
Not from a standard scheduled report, it runs once as the owner. Use a dashboard with role based filters, or generate per user through a flow if it is genuinely required.
Why is the PDF empty?
The report probably returned no rows for the owner, or the filter used a relative date that fell outside the window at run time.