Report Data Refresh

Standard reports are designed to run in near real-time. When a standard report is opened, the data is no more than ten minutes old by default. However, you can change the refresh rate in several ways.

• You can shorten the refresh time so that report approaches real-time.
• You can also increase the refresh time to reduce the load on the server, which could be especially important if the school district is hosting the PowerSchool Special Programs application.
• If a particular report is very processor-intensive and results in noticeable performance degradation for other users, you can instruct PowerSchool Special Programs to refresh the report overnight; however, in this case, the report data could be up to 24 hours old.
• In some cases, a report may be too slow to run in real-time without getting a timeout error message, and you will need to turn on automatic refreshing and turn off the Allow Manual Refreshing option.

Change the Data Refresh Options

1. Open the report, and switch to edit mode.
2. Click Report Properties.
3. Change the Report Properties settings as needed.
   • Auto Refresh System-Wide Report View Overnight, Also At [option]: PowerSchool Special Programs will automatically refresh the data in the system-wide view of the report overnight. You can also specify an additional time during the day when the report data will be refreshed. Automatic data refresh occurs regardless of whether someone accesses the report, so only select this option if the view is really needed. In the formula criteria, there is an option for disabling the system-wide report view. If the system-wide view is disabled, then the option to refresh the report is ignored.
   • Data can be as old as: PowerSchool Special Programs will then refresh the data so that it is no older than the option specified. Note that if the system-wide view is being refreshed automatically (via the Auto Refresh option), then this setting is ignored for the system-wide report view but is still used for report views filtered by location (or any other point in the organizational hierarchy).
   • Allow Manual Refreshing: Displays the refresh button for end-users, enabling them to manually refresh the report data. Otherwise, the button does not appear. This option should not be selected for reports that have a heavy impact on the server.
   • Execute on Mirror Database: If your system is configured with a mirror database for reporting, the standard report is generated on the mirror database, thereby offloading processing from the main database server.
4. Click the Accept button.

Manage High-impact Reports

The impact of reports on the server varies based on their complexity and the amount of data being processed. If a report is a high impact, you can configure it with any of the following options to help manage the impact.

• Select the Auto Refresh...Overnight report option.
• In the Editing Control Options, you can select Hide Data When Editing Report to prevent the report data from being refreshed while you are editing the report at any time in the future. You can also clear Allow Users to Make Private Copies of Report to prevent users from copying and making other versions of a high impact report.
• In the report criteria screen, enable the following options if they are available and appropriate for the report:
  • Require user to select an organizational location before the report appears
  • Disallow system-wide report view (i.e. to reduce the impact on the server)