---
title: "Email a report and schedule it to repeat"
description: "The Downtimes report, the Advanced Report and the historical production report all carry Share and Schedule in their Actions menu. Share emails the view you built to members of your organization now, with an optional message. Schedule saves it as an automation that emails on a daily to yearly cadence, to a fixed recipient list. A schedule needs a rolling date preset, so a report on a fixed from-to window cannot be scheduled. Automations are listed, paused, edited and deleted from the same dialog, one list per report."
category: "Report on performance"
source_url: "https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/share-and-schedule-reports/"
---
# Email a report and schedule it to repeat

Get the report you are looking at to the people who need it, once or every week.

Three reports carry the same two actions in their **Actions** menu. **Share** emails the current view to members of your organization straight away, and **Schedule** saves that view and emails it on the cadence you pick.

Both send the report exactly as your toolbar has it, so build the report first and send it second.

**Prerequisites.** A report you can already build, see [Analyze downtime with Pareto and trend charts](/docs/monitoring/downtimes/) or [Build a utilization report](/docs/monitoring/advanced-report/).

## Share a report by email now
1. Build the report: set the date range, machines, shifts and switches you want the reader to see.
2. Open **Actions** at the right of the filter bar.
3. Click **Share**.
4. Click the recipients field, then pick members from the list. **Search members…** filters it, and **Select all** and **Clear** work on the whole organization.
5. Add a message, or leave it empty.
6. Click **Send**.

A toast confirms the send: **Report shared with 3 recipients**.

![The Share report dialog open over the Downtimes report. A Recipients field holds three member chips with avatars, a Message box below it carries an optional note, and a read-only Report block lists the time interval, date range, machines, shifts and categories being sent. Cancel and Send buttons sit at the bottom right.](/images/monitoring/mon-share-01.webp)

*Sharing a report by email to organization members.*

The **Report** block at the bottom of the dialog is read-only. It lists the time interval, date range, machines, shifts and any switch that is on, copied from the toolbar. Read it before you send: it is the report the recipient gets, not the one you meant to build.

On the Advanced Report and the Downtimes report the block carries a **Shift islands** row, reading either `On — an overnight shift counts on the day it began` or `Off — an overnight shift splits at midnight`. It is shown in both states, so a night-shift report and the same report with the toggle on never read alike, see [Shift islands](/docs/monitoring/advanced-report/#shift-islands). Historical production has no such row, because that report has no toggle.

## Schedule a recurring report
An *automation* is a saved copy of a report view that IoTFlows emails on a cadence to a fixed list of recipients.

1. Set the toolbar's date button to a rolling preset, such as **Last 7 days** or **Last 4 weeks**.
2. Open **Actions**, then click **Schedule**.
3. Click the **+** button, or fill in the form if this is your organization's first automation for this report.

![The Actions menu open on a report toolbar, listing Download as PDF, Download as CSV, Share and Schedule under a Report actions heading, with the date button beside it reading Last 4 weeks](/images/monitoring/mon-share-02.webp)

*Scheduling a report to repeat. The toolbar must be on a rolling preset, not a fixed window.*

The date range is the one rule the form enforces. A schedule needs a *rolling* period: a window counted back from the send date rather than fixed to two dates. Pick **Last 4 weeks**, and every email covers the four completed weeks before it was sent.

> **Warning:**
> **Does the date button show two dates?** Then the report is on a fixed window and new automations are disabled. The dialog opens on its list with an amber banner, **Pick a date range preset to schedule emails**, and the **+** button is grayed out. Open the date button, click a **Last N** preset, click **Apply**, and try again. The button reads the preset name, **Last 8 weeks**, when the window is rolling, and a date span, **8/18/2026 - 9/14/2026**, when it is not.

![The amber banner at the top of the Email automations dialog, reading Pick a date range preset to schedule emails, with the explanation that scheduled emails need a rolling window and that the report is on a custom date range. The plus button above it is greyed out.](/images/monitoring/mon-share-04.webp)

*With a fixed date range selected, scheduling is refused. A schedule needs a rolling period.*

**Last week (Mon - Sun)** is the exception among the presets. It names one finished calendar week rather than a count back, so it writes fixed dates and blocks scheduling like a custom range does. For a Monday recap of the week before, use **Last 7 days**.

## Name and cadence
**Name** is required and appears only in the automations list. Name it for the audience and the rhythm, for example `Monday maintenance recap`, so the list stays readable once there are six of them.

**Cadence** is how often the email goes out: **Daily**, **Weekly**, **Monthly**, **Quarterly** or **Yearly**. **Weekly** adds a **Day of week** picker, Monday by default. No other cadence exposes one, and none lets you set the hour.

Cadence is independent of the report's own time interval. A report bucketed into daily bars can be emailed weekly, which is the usual shape: daily detail, one email a week.

Under the picker, a preview line reads **Next email Mon, Sep 21 covers Sep 8, 2026 – Sep 14, 2026**. Check it before you save. It is the cheapest way to catch a cadence that does not line up with the window.

Fill in the recipients below, then click **Create automation**. The dialog returns to the list with the new automation on it, and a toast reads **Automation created**.

![The New email automation form. A Name field holds Monday maintenance recap, a Delivery section shows five cadence chips with Weekly selected and a Day of week picker set to Monday, a preview line reads Next email covers a date range, and a Recipients section shows three member avatars. A read-only Report Summary sits at the bottom.](/images/monitoring/mon-share-03.webp)

*The automation fields: name, cadence and recipients.*

### Automation fields
| Field | Required | Values | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Name** | Yes | Free text | Shown in the automations list and nowhere else |
| **Cadence** | Yes | Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly | How often the email is sent. Independent of the report's time interval |
| **Day of week** | Weekly only | Monday to Sunday, Monday by default | Hidden for every other cadence |
| **Recipients** | Yes, at least one | Members of your organization | No free-text email addresses |
| **Enabled** | No | On or off | Set from the switch on the list row, not in the form. Off pauses the emails and keeps the automation |
| **Report Summary** | — | Read-only | Time interval, date range, machines, shifts, categories, sort, grouping and switches, copied from the toolbar when you create the automation. On the two reports that have it, a **Shift islands** row shows on or off. Editing an existing automation reads every row back from the saved report, not from your current toolbar |
| Time of day | — | Not configurable | You choose the cadence and, for a weekly report, the day. There is no field for the hour |

## Recipients
Recipients come from your organization's member list. Click the avatar to open the picker, search by name, and click a member to add or remove them. **Select all** adds everyone, and **Clear** empties the list.

At least one recipient is required either way. An automation with an empty list cannot be saved, and **Send** stays disabled until a share has someone to go to.

Neither dialog takes an outside address. To reach a customer, an auditor or a corporate office with no seat, either [invite them to the organization](/docs/admin/invite-members/) first, or download the PDF and send it yourself, see [Available exports](/docs/monitoring/exports-reference/).

Schedule a report to a plant manager who has an account and will not open it, rather than asking them to check the dashboard every Monday. You do not need a schedule when the audience is one conversation: share once instead. A weekly email that nobody asked for gets filtered into a folder, and the one that mattered goes unread with it.

## Review scheduled reports
Open **Actions › Schedule** again. The dialog opens on **Email automations**, everything already scheduled for this report.

Each row carries the name, a cadence badge, the date window it sends, the delivery day for a weekly one, and avatars for its recipients. The switch on the right pauses and resumes it, confirmed by a toast that names it: **Monday maintenance recap paused**. A paused automation keeps its settings and sends nothing.

![The Email automations list with two rows. Each row shows a name, a blue cadence badge reading Daily or Weekly, the date window and delivery day beneath it, a group of recipient avatars, an enable switch and a three-dot menu. A plus button sits above the list.](/images/monitoring/mon-share-05.webp)

*Existing report automations, with edit and delete.*

Each report keeps its own list. The Downtimes report shows only downtime automations, and the Advanced Report and the historical production report each show only theirs, so a report that looks unscheduled may be scheduled from another page.

### Available on
| Report | Share now | Schedule |
|---|---|---|
| [Downtimes](/docs/monitoring/downtimes/), at `/assets?select=downtimes` | Yes | Yes |
| [Advanced Report](/docs/monitoring/advanced-report/), at `/assets?select=advanced_report` | Yes | Yes |
| [Historical production](/docs/production/historical-production/), at `/production?select=historical_report` | Yes | Yes |
| Every other page, including the Assets page and [Operator Performance](/docs/monitoring/operator-performance/) | No | No, export instead |

## Edit or delete an automation
Open the **⋯** menu on a row.

**Edit** reopens the form on that automation. Change the name, the cadence, the delivery day or the recipients, then click **Save changes** for a toast reading **Automation updated**.

You cannot change what the report contains. The **Report Summary** now reads **These are the report parameters saved with this automation**, and stays read-only. To send a different date range, different machines or different switches, build that report on the toolbar, create a new automation, then delete this one.

The same is true of light and dark mode. An automation renders in whichever theme the dashboard was set to when you clicked **Create automation**, and switching your account's theme afterward does not change automations already saved. To send a report in the other mode, switch the dashboard's theme, build the report again, create a new automation, then delete this one.

**Delete** asks to confirm, then removes the automation. The dialog says the action cannot be undone, and it is right: nothing restores a deleted schedule. Emails already sent are unaffected.

## What recipients receive
Every recipient is a member of your organization, so the report goes to the address on their IoTFlows account. Nothing is posted to a public link.

A share carries your message, if you wrote one, and the report as your toolbar had it when you clicked **Send**. A scheduled email carries the report saved with the automation, over the window that ends when it is sent.

Both carry a link back to the report on the dashboard with the filters already applied. The recipient signs in and lands on the view you built rather than a picture of it, so they can move the date range or open a machine from there.

## Errors
| Message | Means | Do this |
|---|---|---|
| **Pick a date range preset from the toolbar to schedule emails.** | The report is on a fixed window, so no automation can be created | Pick a **Last N** preset on the date button and click **Apply** |
| **Could not share report** | Nothing was sent, and no recipient was emailed | Retry. If it repeats, see [Get support](/docs/get-started/get-support/) |
| **Could not save automation** | The schedule was not created | Check the name and at least one recipient, then retry |
| **Could not update automation** | The edit, or the pause switch, did not save. The switch flips back to where it was | Retry. Until it saves, the automation is still sending on its old settings |
| **Could not delete automation** | The automation is still live and still sending | Retry, or pause it with the switch as a stopgap |

Where the server sends its own explanation, the toast shows that instead of the message above.

## See also
- [Analyze downtime with Pareto and trend charts](/docs/monitoring/downtimes/)
- [Build a utilization report](/docs/monitoring/advanced-report/)
- [Available exports](/docs/monitoring/exports-reference/)
- [Invite members to your organization](/docs/admin/invite-members/)