Best practices: Reports

Reports in Datacake are a powerful tool for sensor data management and analysis. They have two main uses within Datacake:

1. Exporting data to keep backups. Data stored in Datacake's time-series database is kept accessible for a period of up to one year. After this duration, the data begins to get deleted in order to manage storage capacity and maintain system efficiency. This approach is typical in data management systems, especially when dealing with large volumes of data generated by IoT devices and sensors.

   However, while this policy helps in managing the database efficiently, it also poses a challenge for long-term data preservation. This is where the role of reports becomes crucial. Reports in Datacake are not just tools for data visualisation and analysis; they also serve an essential function in data backup.

   By using reports, you can export and save the data collected by your sensors and devices before it reaches the end of its retention period.

2. Automated data distribution: Reports can be configured to periodically send updated data to a specified group of email recipients. This automated dissemination ensures that stakeholders, such as team members, managers, or customers, receive timely updates without manual intervention.

Creating a report

Report's name

Make sure to give your report a sinful name. This will also appear as the subject on the automated emails. It will also help you identify it when you have more than one report configured in your workspace.

Timezone & Schedule

Select your timezone and schedule your report using the Schedule selector. You will have three options:

• At a specific time: This will be triggered one or more days of the week, depending on your selection, at the specific time you choose. In the drop-down-list you will be able to select only full hours. If you want the report to be sent at customisable times, you will have to check out how to use crontab expressions.

• Interval between times: This only makes sense when your report should be sent at regular intervals inside of a selected time window. For example, if your devices are in a factory, where temperature should stay at a constant value of 25°C, you will want to send periodically this data to the person in charge of ensuring this temperature conditions. This reports should be then sent inside of the factory working hours (lets say between 7am-5pm) every 30 mins to one hour. This way, the person in charge will receive a report with the data generated by the devices in those frames of time, only within the window of time selected.

• Crontab expression: This function enables you to select in a flexible way the periods of time in which your reports are sent. Please check out the documentation New Rule Engine/Select Triggers/Timebased Schedule, for more examples on how to create your own crontab expressions.

Report Receivers & Branding

Once your report is created, you can add your Report Receivers. Please make sure you type in the correct email addresses of the desired recipients. It is as well important that you select the Branding. If you are the owner of a White Label Site, this step is extremely important for you. If Datacake is selected, the recipients will receive the email from a [e-mail] email address and not from your white labeled email address.