How many CLICKS it takes to Run & Download a report and send that across to Customer in Email?

Example Use Case: Generate Report: “Resolved Cases in past 7 days” and send the PDF copy to Customer / Multiple Customers in email.

Lets see how many clicks it takes when we try to do this manually in Dynamics 365:
Click 1: Open the account record
Click 2: Click “Run Report” button in ribbon – this will slowly load the list of reports
Click 3: Click the desired report “Resolved Cases in past 7 days” – this will slowly load the report in another window (Additional Clicks: if you have parameters to select in report then another click)
Click 4 & 5: Click “Save” icon and then select the report format (e.g PDF)
This will download the report
Click 6: Go back to original account record
Click 7: Open new email activity record
Click 8,9,10: Fill in the email body or (Additional Clicks) use an existing email template to populate the text
Click 11: Click “Attach File”…this will load the attachment sub-grid
Click 12: Click “…” above attachment sub-grid
Click 13: Click “New Attachment”
Click 14: Select the pdf of report which we just generated in above steps
Click 15: Now “Send” the email.

Now using Zap Report Scheduler App, we can achieve this – in just 1-Click OR if automated then 0-Clicks! (instead of 15+ Clicks)

Zap Report Scheduler App is like a super power app…it can help with:

  • Scheduling of Reports, Views, Excel templates, Word templates (ability send multiple reports (as pdf/excel) in single file or auto save to SharePoint.
  • Trigger based export of reports in pdf / excel format (eg sending an invoice pdf to customer when invoice status becomes paid) (blog link)
  • 1-Click Report export & send in email (explanation in this blog)

Lets see what different approaches we could take for 1-Click Export when using Zap Report Scheduler App!

Approach 1: Export Report feature (requires 2 Clicks)

Click button “Export Report” from Quote form. A small pop-up will display all the configurations that have been created for Quote entity (as seen in screenshot below):

Now Click “Generate” button…

This will export the pdf copy of the report… attach it to email and automatically send it to Customer (provided “Auto Send Email” is checked)!

Approach 2: 1-Click Action button (requires 1 Click)

If you further want to reduce clicks (compared to Approach 1)… then can add dedicated “Email Quote” button to the Quote form as shown in screenshot below:

When adding this button to Quote form (from form customizations area)…you need to specify the “Export form configuration GUID”…so whenever user clicks this button “Email Quote” …our app automatically reads the configuration data (which report to run…what format to export…whether to attach to email or Download…which email recipients…which email template…etc and performs the necessary action…

Approach 3: Using Flow / Workflow (requires 3 Clicks)

You can create a trigger report scheduler configuration record which can be called from flow / workflow. You can then run this onDemand flow/workflow on the account records and automatically the PDF of case report will be generated and send across to those customers.

For details on how this works, please refer blog: Automatically generate Invoice PDF (from Report) through Power Automate OR Workflow and send in email to Customer (link)

Approach 4: Fully Automated (0 Clicks)

For details on how to set this up, refer KB article: Sending automated email with reports (as pdf) to Customers or Partners (eg sending cases summary report to all customers weekly or sending order detailed report to partners (distributors) daily) (link)

Zap Recent Updates (Apr 2023)

1. Completely Revamped: Zap Attachment Viewer (with drag-and-drop): This release doubles the features available earlier!!! Some of them are Improved UI, gallery view, drag-and-drop, rename file names, delete attachments, attach to email, view attachments from related records etc.

2. New Version Released: Zap Time Entry App (Track Time against Cases): Track and log time spent by support agents on cases directly from Case form (either using built in Timer functionality or manually add Start & End Times or duration)! The latest version provides automatic calculation of “Extended Price” based on Hourly/staff rates that have been configured in Contract.

3. New Version Released: Zap Copy Record App (v 23.0.1.9): Now Copy Record even from One Entity To Another (e.g. Copy Record from Case To Opportunity (link)

4. New Version Released: Zap In-App Notifications App (v 53.0.1.9): Support for sending In-App Notification when User/s are mentioned in Timeline of any record (link)

5. New Version Released: Zap Report Scheduler App (v 33.0.1.9): Now automatically share the generated report download link to Teams channel. For details, refer blog: Automate the generation of Report and shared to Teams channel when using Zap Report Scheduler App (link)

6. New Version Released: Zap Helpdesk App (v44.1.1.9) :A super major version of Zap Helpdesk has now been released. Some of the new features are: Case History, Email Reply – with ability to include full email and portal history in all new responses to customer, dedicated notifications module with all standard set of notifications built-in, Email Commands, and many more!