I'm just starting to delve into Report Caster, and I have some questions. I'm using Dev Studio 5.2.4, not MRE. One of the procedures I'm trying to schedule in RC creates an Excel file and saves it to a directory on our LAN, by way of filedef. How come when I schedule this job in RC, I have to choose an output format and give it a name, when the procedure itself does this? Where does this file get stored? I just want the procedure to run and do it's thing, I don't need it emailed or FTP'd or printed.

Also, I want to schedule a procedure that runs monthly, and it needs to pass a parameter which will always be the prior month end. Is there an easier way to do this then creating a defined field in the procedure that calculates the last day of the prior month?

Ah. you have to trick report caster.
RC is supposed to be used only for stuff that gets emailed, or sent somewhere, and you're wanting to use it for an 'etl' job, which creates a file and thats it. I do this as well, and do it about two hundred times a day.
You trick it by choosing output format ALPHA
and then must make up a name. This name as zero impact on anything.
and then on the distribution tab, you specify MRE and is use the location name default. Again, sounds nuts, but its the only way to make it work.Why it isn't easier, i don't know, except i'm sure I-WAY wants you to buy some other product to do this. Caster is a 3rd party product, so it doesn't work the way a focus brain expects it to .
and on (#2)
you can run a pre-procedure (RC lets you specify two fex names as pre-procedures and two more as post procedures); In this pre-procedure you can configure your &var and since both fexes run in the same agent, you can use this &var in the main fex.

We don't have MRE, so that option isn't available, but I used your trick using FTP. I just put in a dummy FTP server, user id, and password and it worked great! Thanks for the help!

cool to know!

Jen, you could also add a dummy table request against the famous car file and just add a heading that say the report is complete and email/print/ftp it. The table request before this will still product the excel file where you filedef it.