It is a common request from senior management and executives that the reports be emailed to them, as attachments, instead of them having to go to a specific link and check it out. This helps them in scenarios like access reports even when they are not connected to the network.

If you have used SSRS Reports, you know that there is subscription service built into it. You can decide when, and who will get the reports with what frequency.

However, if you build the report in Excel Services using the ODC connections or the OLAP cubes, then you are out of luck, as there is no out of the box way to set these subscriptions up.

If you have Nintex Workflow 2013, though, you can work around this.  There is a neat option, to schedule item level workflows, which you can use to setup the subscription (sort of).

Step 1: The Workflow

The first thing you need to do is to build a workflow, that we can schedule later.

• To do this, start by navigating to your BI Center and navigate to the reports library.

Navigate to Library settings and click on Create a workflow in Nintex workflow to open the Nintex workflow designer.

Once the Workflow designer is open, build a very simple notification action workflow, as shown below.

The configuration is as below. Points to note

1) Make sure you check the attachments checkbox, so that the report gets attached to the email.

2) I am hard coding my workflow to Jan Kotas, but you could use a SharePoint group, or a list column to capture the “Subscribers”,  to make it more dynamic.

And also, You can build your subject and body with more dynamic content like the date and time, other project details etc.,

Once it is configured, go ahead and publish it. I named my workflow Email Subscription.

Step 2: Scheduling the workflow

Navigate back to the report you want to schedule

Click on ellipsis, beside the report that you want to schedule the subscription, until you see the Schedule Workflows option as shown. Click on it.

• This brings up the Schedule Workflows page, as below.
Click on Add Schedule and fill in the details as below, and Click Save.

That’s it. Now your workflow will run, to send the report attachment to the executives mentioned in the workflow.