The Omniscope Scheduler app and Automation API allow the user to define, automate, trigger and schedule data model execution, report production/ refresh, and batch publishing tasks. It runs data models at a scheduled time or uses an event-driven trigger to start the process.
They are a powerful solution, enabling businesses to streamline their data processes and gain valuable insights effortlessly.
What benefits deliver ROI for this app?
Automated Data Processing and Reporting:
- Schedule regular data updates to ensure your team always has access to the latest information. Once customised workflows are created, defining data extraction, preparation, and visualisation steps, every scheduled execution will happen in seconds or minutes, minimising the time needed for the data journey.
As soon as the new data is available in its raw format, it will be transformed and available to users within moments in the right format, transformed into insights.
- 'Hands-free mode': Automate the generation of reports, saving time, effort, and money. The Scheduler never sleeps; it takes over execution, refresh, customisation jobs, and publishing around the clock. It allows organisations to run complex reporting and mass publishing with minimal manpower.
- Data quality screening automation: The app ensures that all data is transformed and formatted uniformly, enabling consistency and minimising the risk of human error. Data quality and validation can be integrated into the workflow to include data quality checks, preventing errors from reaching the reports. Ultimately, it enables organisations to trust their data.
- Holistic view of the business with real-time data integration:
Integrate data from various sources (e.g., transactions, CRM, ERP, social media) in real time, providing a comprehensive view of business operations.
- Alerting and Monitoring:
Set up alerts for key data changes or anomalies to stay informed and responsive to critical business events.
Monitor data pipelines to ensure smooth and uninterrupted operations, creating customised email alerts to distinguish between data anomalies and business events that require immediate attention.
Conclusion
The key value that the Scheduler and Automation API deliver to the business is having the right information delivered at the right time, in the best possible format, with clear time savings and resource savings.
Most importantly, delivering data and insights that can be trusted.
What are the use cases for the automation and efficiency gains?
Users can create automation tasks where each project has regular execution intervals (every hour, day, month). The projects will typically contain a live connection to data sources, defined ETL steps (transformation logic), and produce one or more outputs. Some of the outputs can be interactive web reports, static reports like PDF or PowerPoint presentations; data extracts like csv, Excel; or database updates. The workflows can also generate email notifications or deliver links to projects and dashboards.
Parameterised execution:
Sometimes the same workflow logic will be used to extract a report for one product, delivered to the specific audience. Then the same process will be replicated for many other products or audiences. This process can be completely automated by creating parameterised execution, so that Omniscope goes through the list of parameter values and repeats the process until it comes to the end of the list.
Customised outputs and variants:
In a situation where the same report should be customised or contain different data subsets for each variant, Omniscope Scheduler can be used to populate and create tailored outputs for multiple recipients, and generate tailored interactive Report versions.
See also batch output option, where the outputs (such as multiple data formats) and subsets can be defined in a single table, which will be executed by the Scheduler app.
Mass publishing:
When it comes to the production of reports that amalgamate the results of multiple executions (e.g., report for product A, followed by B, C, D, E, and so on), Omniscope Scheduler can again orchestrate regular execution and deliver both interactive web reports, as well as accompanying PDF or PowerPoint presentations, containing an index with a list of contents.
Integrations with third-party apps
The Automation API (Scheduler, Workflow and Project API) allow you to integrate Omniscope with other apps, so that you can execute a workflow programmatically, call Scheduler tasks, change configuration parameters, create projects from templates and automate all the main functionalities from your own or third party software. All this is possible by leveraging the REST API available in Omniscope.
Ad hoc processing and event-driven execution:
Sometimes the data workflows will require refresh and execution in irregular intervals, because the data is not generated or available until something happens. In this scenario, the user can create a process that "watches" a nominated folder (the 'watch folder') continuously, while the Scheduler is running. Any XML Action files saved into this folder are detected by the Scheduler app and executed immediately, then deleted in sequence, providing event-driven control of Scheduler.
Who can use Scheduler and define automation tasks?
Typically, Omniscope Scheduler will be available from the central Omniscope installation (with a Business or Enterprise license), so that multiple authenticated users can collaborate, add new jobs to the execution list, or manage existing tasks. Jobs can be scheduled to be executed in sequence, or sometimes, concurrently.
Access to the Scheduler app and the folder is one of the permissions granted by the Omniscope administrator.
Omniscope Evo also allows you to leverage third-party scripts/software to execute tasks /actions via the Scheduler. Read more here how to utilise REST API to execute new or pre-existing tasks in the Scheduler using this alternative method.
Monitoring Scheduler tasks and accessing the logs
In the Admin application > Admin dashboards users can monitor success rate of different scheduled tasks and troubleshoot any issues by accessing the logs data via an interactive dashboard interface (see the Scheduler Log link in your installation). Access to this area is also restricted to the users with Admin permission.
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