Email XLS Reports from ELK to data analysts

Introducing XLS Email Reports in Skedler 1.1

Skedler PDF reports are an easy way to send actionable visual information from your Elasticsearch-Kibana application to non-technical users. But how do you meet the requirement from your customers, data analysts and users who are looking for raw data from your Kibana application? What if they would like to receive data periodically for analyzing with Microsoft Excel or Tableau?

We are proud to announce the beta release of Skedler 1.1 that allows you to schedule XLS reports in addition to PDF, PNG and in-line PNG reports.

Skedler - Select report format in schedule a report window

Schedule XLS reports in Skedler

Scheduled XLS reports makes it simple to schedule, generate, and send hourly/daily/weekly/monthly data snapshots to data analysts. Skedler will automatically generate an XLS worksheet for each chart in your Kibana dashboard, combine all the worksheets into a single XLS file, and email the report to target recipients as per the schedule.

Consider the following Kibana dashboard with several charts providing information regarding Crime statistics in Alameda County for the past 90 days.

Alameda county – Past 90 days crime statistics

Skedler will automatically convert this dashboard into a single XLS report with multiple worksheets, one worksheet for each chart.

Daily XLS Report screenshot

You can notice that the XLS report contains six(6) worksheets, each corresponding to the chart in the Kibana dashboard. Skedler automatically uses the chart title for the worksheet name so that it is easy to identify the worksheets and the data. You can download the sample email report from Daily XLS Report of All Crimes Dashboard.

In addition to emailing XLS report to customers, data analysts and others who prefer to use their own tools, you can also generate and store the XLS reports in server side file folders which can then be used for various analysis or as a data feed for other applications.

Test drive Skedler v1.1 Beta with XLS reports

If you are interested in trying out the Beta release of Skedler v1.1, contact us and we will help you get started with Skedler. Skedler is easy to set up and get started. We will provide you with the technical support required to get past common configuration issues.

Introducing Skedler – Powerful Report Scheduling for Kibana

Kibana is a nice tool for quickly creating real-time dashboards from Elasticsearch data. But, what if your managers, business users and other stakeholders need reports delivered to them periodically, e.g., weekly status report on business/technical metrics? Wouldn’t it be great to send the right information to the right people at the right time automatically instead of asking them to check the dashboard periodically?

Possible Solutions

Unfortunately, Kibana doesn’t offer this reporting functionality which is a common feature in traditional BI reporting platforms. So, the possible solutions are:

1. Use a BI report scheduling tool that has a plug-in for Elasticsearch and build the reports from scratch –> For most customers, this is not practical approach for two reasons: 1. You need to recreate the reports from scratch and maintain them in two systems (Kibana and the BI platform). 2. BI platforms are large deployments requiring dedicated resources. So, unless you already have a BI platform that works with Kibana / Elasticsearch, this approach is an expensive affair.

2. Build your own custom report scheduler combining a bunch of tools –> This is a mammoth effort. Scheduling and generating consistent reports from Kibana and Elasticsearch is a very complex technical exercise which requires deep expertise on several fronts (UI engineering, Kibana, Elasticsearch, Back end scheduler expertise, systems expertise to handle Kibana/Elasticsearch configurations etc). Plus, you need to allocate dedicated resources to keep pace with the frequent changes in Elasticsearch/Kibana.

For most organizations, both #1 and #2 are not viable options. They can neither afford a new BI reporting platform nor divert their scarce engineering resources to build and manage this software.

Introducing Skedler – Report Scheduler for Kibana

Skedler is a powerful report scheduling solution that allows organizations to schedule, generate, and distribute Kibana dashboards periodically to various stakeholders. It is simple to install and is designed to work seamlessly with your existing Kibana/Elasticsearch installation.

Skedler enables organizations to create PDF and PNG snapshots (more format to come soon) quickly using Kibana dashboards. It provides the flexibility and features to ensure that reports are sent to the right people when they need them through centralized scheduling and distribution. With Report Scheduler, Kibana can serve as a single system for both interactive analysis and reporting, eliminating redundant systems and saving significant costs.

See how Skedler works in this video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=try-KdXm11o&utm_source=skedler_site&utm_medium=blog_article&utm_campaign=howitworks_video

Easy Installation

Skedler can be installed and ready to go in just a few seconds. Simply unzip the skedler package in a server, configure your Kibana and Elasticsearch URLs in the config file, start the skedler engine and you are all set to start generating reports.

Auto-discovery of Kibana dashboards

Skedler automatically discovers the dashboards in your Kibana server and makes them available for scheduling.

High Resolution PDF Reports

Skedler generates high resolution PDF reports from your Kibana dashboards and auto-optimizes the report regardless of how your Kibana dashboard is set up. You can also customize the resolution of the reports as needed to suit your requirements.

Dynamic filters, recipients, and folders

What if you want to generate customer specific reports from a single dashboard and email the reports to targeted email recipients or save them in custom folders? Skedler has a solution for that. You can create filters, filter specific recipients, and filter specific file folders in Skedler and use them while scheduling reports. Skedler will automatically apply the filters on the fly to dashboards, generate reports, and email/preserve the reports as defined.

Eliminate Redundant Reporting Systems

Report Scheduler allows you to drive both analysis and reporting from the Kibana platform, eliminating the need for redundant reporting systems.

See a Live Demo and Test Drive Skedler

Skedler is a powerful solution that will allow you to add report scheduling capability to your Kibana-Elasticsearch system within a few minutes. See a live demo of the Skedler solution and get set up for a free test drive. Request a live demo and test drive today.

Save