Report Freshness and Metadata
Summary
Runline report metadata can describe publication state without requiring a workbook to retrieve and inspect the full report body.
Core Idea
Freshness is not one value: publication time, receipt time, cached time, and worksheet recalculation time can differ.
How It Works
U.GET_METADATA retrieves report metadata, while publish metadata helpers add recognized settings to a report. Compare metadata for the same topic and environment before concluding that a displayed range is current.
Why It Matters
Operational monitors should distinguish a publisher that stopped sending from a subscriber that stopped receiving or a worksheet that stopped recalculating.
In Excel (Runline U)
Put freshness checks in separate cells from the report body. This allows lightweight monitoring and makes timestamps available for conditional formatting or alerts.
Common Patterns
- Monitor a report timestamp without expanding its data.
- Compare expected update cadence with the observed metadata time.
- Use metadata helpers to compose recognized publish settings rather than hand-building opaque strings.
Misconceptions
- A recent workbook calculation time does not prove the report itself is recent.
- Metadata from one topic or environment says nothing about another report with a similar name.