Generating Quick Reports

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The Run Quick Report page (Reports > Run Report) allows you to select and manually generate a custom report. You can choose the report to generate from the list of default custom reports in the SL1 system.

This list includes the default custom reports provided by ScienceLogic and any reports developed by you or another user in the SL1 system. Quick Reports allow you to quickly generate a spreadsheet or graphical report using the information you wish to view.

Use the following menu options to navigate the SL1 user interface:

  • To view a pop-out list of menu options, click the menu icon ().
  • To view a page containing all of the menu options, click the Advanced menu icon ().

Generating a Quick Report

In the user interface for a report, users of type Administrator can view options and devices for all organizations. Users of type User can view only options and devices for organizations of which they are a member.

You can specify how many days SL1 will retain data from reports by going to the Data Retention Settings page (System > Settings > Data Retention) and adjusting the Ad-hoc and Scheduled Reports field. Possible values are 0 - 365, in days. If you use the default value of 0, SL1 will remove files older than 30 days from the populated directory: /opt/em7/gui/ap/www/em7/libs/od_templates/populated.

If you want to adjust the default timeout of 1800 seconds (30 minutes) for running a report, navigate to the Run Report page for that report from the Reports page () and click the Edit button. On the Report Template Editor modal page, update the Timeout value and click Save.

Quick Reports run on the current appliance (the appliance on which the report user is logged into) in a distributed SL1 stack.

SL1 might not be able to generate reports that contain extremely large amounts of data. The amount of data that SL1 can process when generating a report is constrained by the configured memory limits of SL1. The upper limit of data is dependent on the number of rows, number of columns, and the size of each field. Each report will have different data limits. For example, the Interface Usage report is limited to 10,000 interfaces. For reports of a similar size, ScienceLogic recommends you test to ensure that the report generates correctly with the number of data points you require. If the report does not generate correctly, you will need to generate multiple smaller reports. You can use the Row Count Estimate field next to the Generate button to get an estimate of the number of rows that will appear in the report before SL1 generates it.

To generate a report on the Run Quick Report page:

  1. Go to the Reports page () and expand the entry for Run Report (Reports > Run Report).
  2. Expand the appropriate category, such as Asset Management or Devices, and select the report you want to run. The Run Quick Report page appears.

    Quick Reports are listed by category. For details on defining and editing categories, see the Report Categories section. If a Quick Report is not associated with a category, that Quick Report appears under the "Others" category. To assign or change a category for a Quick Report, edit the Category field in the Report Template Editor page (Reports > Management > Report Manager > create/edit).

  3. Update the fields on the input form to specify the options and data to include in the report. For more information, see Filling Out Input Forms.

    As you update the fields for this report, the Row Count Estimate field next to the Generate button is updated to provide an estimate of the number of rows that will appear in this report. You can use this field to manage the size of the generated report by adding or removing items from the report as needed. To disable the Row Count Estimate feature, de-select the Report Size Estimation option on the Behavior Settings page (System > Settings > Behavior). This feature is enabled by default. For more information about how to edit the settings for this field, see "Creating a Report Template" in the Report Development manual.

    The following reports utilize the Row Count Estimate field: Device-At-A-Glance, Device Availability, Device Top Metrics, Device Top Utilization, Device Utilization, Interface In Use, Interface Top Metrics, Monitored Element, and PowerPack Information.

  1. In the Output Format drop-down at the bottom of the page, select a format in which to generate the report. You can choose from Open Document Format (ODF) Spreadsheet (.ods), Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet (.xlsx), Adobe Acrobat Document (.pdf), or a Web Page (.html).
  2. Click the Generate button. The Report Generation pop-up window appears with a message that a link to your report will be displayed when the report is created. The link will also be sent to the mailbox of the current user.

    You can opt to not receive an email with a link to a report by going to the Account Preferences page (Preferences > Account > Preferences) and selecting No in the Ad-hoc Report Email Preference field.

  1. After the report is created, the Report Generation window displays a link to the report and icons that you can click to download the report in various formats.

  2. Save the report in the format you prefer and close the pop-up windows.

NOTE: You can generate default custom reports using their default inputs, or you can edit the inputs to meet your business needs. To see a detailed description of each report, including a description and input and output options, see the section on ScienceLogic Default Custom Reports.

Filling Out Input Forms

After you select the report to run, you must specify the input options. The input form lets you select the options and data to include in the report.

These options vary by report. However, the following input options appear for multiple default custom reports in SL1 and are available for use in custom reports:

  • Organizations. Select the organizations that you want to include data for in the report. You can select all organizations, individual organizations, or a grouping of organizations. Organizations contain other entities, like users, devices, assets, and policies.
  • Select By. You can select the specific entities you want to include data for in the report. These options include selecting by Org/Device, selecting by Org/Asset, and selecting by ESX Server/VM, among others.
  • Report Span. Some reports provide input options that specify the time span that the data on the report should cover. These options include Daily, Weekly, or Monthly.
  • Device Categories. Select the device categories of the devices you want to include in the report. You can select all device categories, individual device categories, or a grouping of device categories.
  • Optional Columns. Provides a list of additional, optional information to include in the report.

As you update the fields for this report, the Row Count Estimate field next to the Generate button is updated to provide an estimate of the number of rows that will appear in this report. You can use this field to manage the size of the generated report by adding or removing items from the report as needed. For more information about how to edit the settings for this field, see Creating a Report Template.

Quick Report Example

In this example we will select the Device Availability report and fill out its input form:

  1. Go to the Reports page () and expand the entry for Run Report (Reports > Run Report).
  2. Expand the Devices category, and select the Device Availability report. The input options for the Device Availability Quick Report appear.
  3. For this example, select the following options:

  • Device Selection. We did not select this checkbox. If this checkbox is selected, all devices in all organizations will be included in the report and will gray out the Organizations field. This checkbox is selected by default.

  • Organizations. We selected IS_System and System. The report will include only information from devices in these two organizations. To select multiple organizations, press [Ctrl] while selecting the organizations.

  • Select individual devices. We want our report to include all devices in the organizations we selected above, so we did not select this checkbox. If we did select the checkbox, we could select individual devices for the report, grouped by organization.

  • Devices by Organization. This field is grayed out, since we did not check the Select individual devices checkbox.

  • Device Group Selector. By default, the All Device Groups checkbox is selected. If we wanted to include only devices in specific device groups, we could unselect this checkbox.

  • Device Categories. By default, the All Device Categories checkbox is selected. If we wanted to include only devices in specific device categories, we could unselect this checkbox.

  • Report Span. By default, Monthly is selected for the length of the report. We could also choose from Weekly and Daily report spans.

  • Starting. By default, the current month is selected. From the drop-down list we could choose a specific month as the start date for the report. This field allows you to choose a start date that includes the current month and any month within the last 36 months. Selecting a different Report Span will change the options in this drop-down list.

  • Duration. By default, 1 month is selected. We could select different durations for the report from the drop-down list, ranging from 1 month to 36 months.

  • Timezone. By default, UTC is selected. We could select a different timezone to use for date and time values in the report. Specify the timezone by number of hours offset from UTC.

  • Organizations. We selected IS_System and System. The report will include only information from devices in these two organizations. To select multiple organizations, press [Ctrl] while selecting the organizations.

  • Select individual devices. We want our report to include all devices in the organizations we selected above, so we did not select this checkbox. If we did select the checkbox, we could select individual devices for the report, grouped by organization.

  • Devices by Organization. This field is grayed out, since we did not check the Select individual devices checkbox.

  • Device Group Selector. By default, the All Device Groups checkbox is selected. If we wanted to include only devices in specific device groups, we could unselect this checkbox.

  • Device Categories. By default, the All Device Categories checkbox is selected. If we wanted to include only devices in specific device categories, we could unselect this checkbox.

  • Report Span. By default, Monthly is selected for the length of the report. We could also choose from Weekly and Daily report spans.

  • Starting. By default, the current month is selected. From the drop-down list we could choose a specific month as the start date for the report. This field allows you to choose a start date that includes the current month and any month within the last 36 months. Selecting a different Report Span will change the options in this drop-down list.

  • Duration. By default, 1 month is selected. We could select different durations for the report from the drop-down list, ranging from 1 month to 36 months.

  • Timezone. By default, UTC is selected. We could select a different timezone to use for date and time values in the report. Specify the timezone by number of hours offset from UTC.

  • Separated By. We selected Organization to separate the devices by the organization to which they belong. The other options are Device Category and Device Group.

  • Report Sections. By default, Both is selected. We could select a different method for how the report will be arranged by specifying if you want the report to display Details Only or Totals Only.

  • Optional Columns. By default, no optional columns are selected. We could select any available optional columns to display on the report.

  • Output format. We selected Microsoft Excel 2007+ Spreadsheet (.xls). The report will be generated in an OpenDocument format. The options in the drop-down list appear in every custom report. The other options are: Web page (.html); ODF Spreadsheet (.ods); and Adobe Acrobat Document (.pdf).

    As you update the fields for this report, the Row Count Estimate field next to the Generate button is updated to provide an estimate of the number of rows that will appear in this report. For this example, the estimated number of rows is 40.

  1. Click the Generate button to create the report. SL1 creates the report as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, with a column for the Device Name and a column for the average Device Availability, in percent:

Multi-Tenancy

Input and Output for Quick Reports complies with multi-tenancy. That is, only users of type Administrator can view options, devices, and policies for all devices. Users of type User can view options, devices, and policies for their own organization(s) only, both when selecting options and in the generated report.

Controlling Access to Reports

To control who can open and download reports, perform the following steps:

  1. Either go to the console of the Administration Portal or use SSH to access the server.
  2. Log in as em7admin with the appropriate password.
  3. Type the following at the command line:
  4. sudo vi /etc/nginx/conf.d/em7ngx_web_ui.conf

  5. Find the following line:
  6. rewrite ^/em7/libs/od_templates/populated/(.+)$ /file_auth_wrapper.em7?redirect=1&match_user=1? last;

    where redirect=1&match_user=1 is where the permissions can be changed.

  1. To change the permissions, edit the following portion of the above line in one of the following ways:
  • redirect=0&match_user=1. Allow only users who are logged in to EM7 and are the author of the report to open and download the report.
  • redirect=1&match_user=0. If a user enters the URL of a report in a browser session and is not logged in to EM7, redirect the user to the EM7 login page. After login, the user can open and download the report.
  • redirect=1&match_user=1. If a user enters the URL of a report in a browser session and is not logged in to EM7, redirect the users to the EM7 login page. After login, only the author of the report can open or download the report.
  • The default value is redirect=1&match_user=1.

    You will need to make this change on every Database Server and Administration Portal appliance.

  1. Save and quit the file (:wq)