Tip 215: Send Reports on Schedule

This is our last tip for 2004! Best wishes for a safe and happy new year's holiday and a great 2005!

"I need to send a report each week. Can I schedule it, so it's sent automatically?"

Before Outlook's security locked it down, you could easily use Task Scheduler for this task. It doesn't work so well for unattended mailings now, but if you just need the message to popup as a reminder and you'll press Send, see Using Microsoft Outlook to Schedule Report Transmissions.

A similar method that is entirely within Outlook involves creating an appointment as an online meeting and using the path to a template as the meeting URL. When the reminder for the meeting fires, the template opens. Thanks to increased Outlook security, you'll need to press Send here too, and unlike using Task Scheduler, Outlook needs to be open beforehand.