Scheduling Custom Reports

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You can schedule a custom report to be automatically generated by the SL1 system at a specific time, either once or on a recurring schedule. Scheduled reports can be automatically emailed to users, external contacts, or vendors.

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 ().

Viewing the List of Report Jobs

You can schedule a custom report to be automatically generated by the SL1 system at a specific time, either once or on a recurring schedule.

Scheduled reports can be automatically emailed to users, external contacts, or vendors.

To schedule a report, you must first define and store the parameters of a report, including to whom it will be delivered, in a Report Job. You can then schedule this Report Job (either a single instance or a recurring instance) from the Report Scheduler page.

After a report has been scheduled, you can view a list of upcoming Report Jobs on the Scheduled Report Jobs page. After a scheduled report has been generated, you can view a list of archived scheduled reports on the Scheduled Report Archive page.

The Report Jobs page (Reports > Create Report > Report Jobs) displays the following about each report job:

To sort the list of report jobs, click on a column heading. The list will be sorted by the column value, in ascending order. To sort by descending order, click the column heading again. The Edited On column sorts by descending order on the first click; to sort by ascending order, click the column heading again.

  • Report Job. Name of the report job.
  • Run As. The user associated with the report. When a scheduled report uses this report job, the report will generate as if the Run As User was running the report.
  • Type. Specifies how the report will be delivered. Choices are Email & Archive or Archive.
  • Recipients. The users and external contacts who will receive the report.
  • Last Edited By. The user who created or last edited the report job.
  • Edited On. Date the report job was lasted edited or created.

Creating a Report Job

You can define a report job in the Report Jobs page (Reports > Create Report > Report Jobs). From this page, you can create a report job, run the report job, edit the report job, or delete the report job.

To create a report job:

  1. On the Reports page (), expand the entry for Create Report and select Report Jobs. The Report Jobs page appears.
  2. Click the Create button. The Report Job Editor page appears.
  3. The Report Job Editor page contains fields where you can select the parameters of the report job. The fields are:
  • Job Title. Specify a title of up to 220 characters for the report job.
  • Run as User. Specify the type of user to run the report as. When a scheduled report uses this report job, the report generates as if the Run As User was running the report. This field is useful when a system administrator, who can access all entities in all organizations, is configuring a report job for a regular user, who is allowed to access only entities aligned with the regular user's organizations. Two access hooks affect the behavior of the Run As User field:
  • Run As Org User. If this Access Hook is included in an Access Key that is aligned with your account, the Run As User field will contain a list of users with the same primary organization as your own. You can select one of these users to align with the generated report.
  • Run As Any User. If this Access Hook is included in an Access Key that is aligned with your account, you will be able to schedule report jobs as any user. The Run As User field will contain a list of all users. You can select one of these users to align with the generated report.

    If your user account does not include either of these Access Hooks, you can schedule report jobs only as yourself. The Run As User field will not appear in the Report Job Editor page. For more information on organization restrictions, see the section on Access Permissions.

  • Report Definition. Select a report from the list of all reports defined in the Report Management page. Only report definitions to which you are allowed access will appear in this field. For more information on selecting input options, see the Filling Out Input Forms section in Generating Quick Reports. When you select the report, the Report Options section for that specific report appears at the bottom of the Report Job Editor page.
  • Report definitions are listed by category. For details on defining and editing categories, see Report Categories. If a report definition is not associated with a category, that report definition appears under the "Other" category. To assign or change a category for a report definition, edit the Category field in the Report Template Editor page (Reports > Management > Report Manager > create/edit).

  • Report Appliance. Select the appliance on which to run the report, if more than one appliance is available. By default the current appliance is selected. If you select "Active Database", SL1 locates the active database server at run time and will execute the report on that database server.
  • Job Recipients. Specifies the recipients for the report. Clicking in this field displays the Add Recipients modal page, where you can select users, external contacts, and vendor contacts to include in the Job Recipients field. To learn how to add job recipients to the report job, see Step 4, below.
  • Job Type. Specifies how the generated report will be delivered. Choices are:
  • Email & Archive. Report is emailed to the specified email address (in the Email To field) and also archived on the server.
  • Archive. Report is stored on the server.

  • Delivery Method. Specifies the method of delivery and the output format (if applicable) for the report. Choices are:
  • Inline (HTML). The generated report will be sent to the selected users in the body of an Email.
  • Attachment. The generated report will be sent to the selected users as an attachment to an Email. To select this option, select one of the output formats in the Attachment section of the drop-down list.
  • Link to EM7. The generated report will be made available via a direct URL. The link will be sent to the selected users in an email. To select this option, select one of the output formats in the Link to EM7 section of the drop-down list.

For the Attachment and Link to EM7 options, the following output formats are available:

  • Adobe Acrobat Document (.pdf)
  • Web page (.html)
  • Microsoft Excel 2007+ Spreadsheet (.xlsx)
  • Open Document Format (ODF) Spreadsheet (.ods)

    The options that can be selected in the Delivery Method field are defined in the Delivery Method field in the Report Template Editor page for the selected report.

  • Report Options. The interface for the selected report appears in this pane. Select the options you want included in the automatically generated report. These options are limited by the Access Keys aligned with your account and the organization memberships aligned with your account.
  1. You can add recipients to a report in the Add Recipients modal page. The Add Recipients modal page allows you to select users, external contacts, and vendor contacts to include in the "To" field of the Job recipients field:

  2. The options in the Add Recipients modal page are:

  • Recipient Types. Displays checkboxes for EM7 User, External Contact, and Vendor. If a checkbox is selected, the users in the selected contact group will appear in the Matched Recipients field.
  • Search For. Select All recipients, Organization, Product, or Ticket Queue. The Matched Recipients field will display only users in the specified group.
  • Search. Enter the name of the user, external contact, or vendor you are searching for.
  • Matched Recipients. Displays the possible recipients based on the criteria you specified in the Recipient Types and/or Search For and/or Search fields.
  1. To add a user, external contact, or vendor as a job recipient, select its checkbox. To select all users displayed in the Matched Recipients field, select the checkbox next to the Action heading.
  2. Click the Add/Remove button to add the selected users. To remove users as job recipients, de-select users by removing the check mark and then clicking the Add/Remove button.
  3. On the Report Jobs page, click the Save button. The new report job will appear in the list of report jobs in the Report Jobs page.

Running a Report Job

After you save a report job, it will appear in the Report Jobs page. You can run the report job immediately from this page.

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.

You might find it helpful to immediately run the report job to test the parameters you selected and verify that the report is delivered correctly.

To avoid potential "504 Gateway Timeout" errors, ScienceLogic recommends that you only run a report job with a schedule, instead of using the lightning bolt icon () to run the report job on an ad-hoc basis. ScienceLogic recommends you run the report from the list of reports in the Run Report entry on the Reports page.

To run a report job:

  1. On the Reports page (), expand the entry for Create Report and select Report Jobs. The Report Jobs page appears.
  2. Find the report job you want to run and click its lightning bolt icon (). 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.

    To avoid potential timeout errors, ScienceLogic recommends that you use this option sparingly.

    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.

  3. 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.

Deleting a Report Job

After you save a report job, it will appear in the Report Jobs page. You can delete the report job from this page if necessary.

To delete a report job:

  1. On the Reports page (), expand the entry for Create Report and select Report Jobs. The Report Jobs page appears.
  2. Find the report job you want to delete and select its checkbox.
  3. In the Select Action drop-down list at the bottom right of the page, select Delete Job Definition.
  4. Click the Go button. The report job will be deleted from SL1.

Scheduling a Report Job

After a report job has been created, you can schedule the report to run automatically on the report Schedule Manager page (Reports > Create Report > Scheduler). Scheduled reports are automatically generated by SL1 once, at a specified time, or at specified regular intervals. You can select the day and time the report job runs or the recurrence of the report job, if necessary, and save these parameters to view, edit, enable or disable, or delete later.

You can also view and manage all scheduled processes from the Schedule Manager page (Registry > Schedules > Schedule Manager). For more information, see the section on Managing Scheduled Tasks.

Viewing the Schedule Manager

The Schedule Manager page (Reports > Create Report > Scheduler) displays the following information about each scheduled or recurring report:

  • Schedule Summary. Displays the name assigned to the scheduled process.
  • Schedule Description. Displays a description of the scheduled process.
  • Event ID. Displays a unique, numeric ID for the scheduled process. SL1 automatically creates this ID for each scheduled process.
  • sch id. Displays a unique, numeric ID for the schedule. SL1 automatically creates this ID for each schedule.
  • Context. Displays the area of SL1 upon which the schedule works.
  • Timezone. Displays the time zone associated with the scheduled process.
  • Start Time. Displays the date and time at which the scheduled process will begin.
  • Duration. Displays the duration, in minutes, which the scheduled process occurs.
  • Recurrence Interval. If applicable, displays the interval at which the scheduled process recurs.
  • End Date. If applicable, displays the date and time on which the scheduled process will recur.
  • Last Run. If applicable, displays the date and time the scheduled process most recently ran.
  • Owner. Displays the username of the owner of the scheduled process.
  • Organization. Displays the organization to which the scheduled process is assigned.
  • Visibility. Displays the visibility level for the scheduled process. Possible values are "Private", "Organization", or "World".
  • Enabled. Specifies if the scheduled process is enabled. Possible values are "Yes" or "No".

To edit a scheduled or recurring report, click its wrench icon () and update the report as needed on the Schedule Editor modal page. For more information, see the following topic.

Defining a Scheduled or Recurring Report

You can schedule a report in SL1 from the Schedule Manager page. SL1 will automatically create the report at the scheduled time.

To add a scheduled or recurring report to the calendar:

  1. On the Reports page (), expand the entry for Create Report and select Scheduler. The Schedule Manager page appears.
  2. Click Create. The Schedule Editor page appears:

  1. On the Schedule Editor modal page, enter values in the following fields:

Basic Settings

  • Schedule Name. Type a name for the scheduled process.

  • Schedule Type. Indicates the scheduled process type (such as Tickets, Reports, or Devices).

  • Visibility. Select the visibility for the scheduled process. You can select one of the following:
  • Private. The scheduled process is visible only to the owner selected in the Owner field.

  • Organization. The scheduled process is visible only to the organization selected in the Organization field.
  • World. The scheduled process is visible to all users.
  • Organization. Select the organization to which you want to assign the scheduled process.
  • Owner. Select the owner of the scheduled process. The default value is the username of the user who created the scheduled process.
  • Preserve Schedule. Select this checkbox to exclude this schedule from being pruned after expiration.
  • Description. Type a description of the scheduled process.

Time Settings

  • Start Time. Click in the field and select the date and time you want the scheduled process to start.

  • Time Zone. Select the region or time zone for the scheduled start time.

If you want SL1 to automatically adjust for daylight savings time (if applicable), then you must select a named region (such as America/New York) in the Time Zone field. If you select a specific time zone (such as EST) or a specific time offset (such as GMT-5), then SL1 will not automatically adjust for daylight savings time.

  • Recurrence. Select whether you want the scheduled process to occur once or on a recurring basis. You can select one of the following:
  • None. The scheduled process occurs only once.
  • By Interval. The scheduled process recurs at a specific interval.
  • Every Xth day of the Week. The scheduled process occurs at a monthly interval based on a day of the week. The day of the week displayed in this option matched the day selected in the Start Time field. For example, if you set the Start Time to Thursday, August 5th and that day is the first Thursday of the month, then the recurrence option will be Every 1st Thursday, and the scheduled process will occur monthly on the first Thursday of the month.

If you select By Interval, the following additional fields appear:

  • Interval. In the first field, enter a number representing the frequency of the scheduled process, then select the time interval in the second field. Choices are Minutes, Hours, Days, Weeks, or Months. For example:
  • If you specify "6 Hours", then the scheduled process recurs every six hours from the time listed in the Start Date field.

  • If you specify "10 Days", then the scheduled process recurs every 10 days from the date listed in the Start Date field.
  • If you specify "2 Weeks", then the scheduled process recurs every two weeks, on the same day of the week as the Start Date.
  • If you specify "3 Months" the ticket recurs every three months, on the same day of the month as the Start Date.

  • Recur Until. Specifies when the scheduled process stops recurring. You can select one of the following:
  • No Limit. The scheduled process recurs indefinitely until it is disabled.
  • Specified Date. The scheduled process recurs until a specific date and time. If you select Specified Date, you must enter a date and time in the Last Recurrence field.

  • Last Recurrence. Click in the field and select the date and time you want the scheduled process to stop recurring.

Action Settings

  • Report Job. Select the report job to generate the report. This drop-down includes all created report jobs in the system.

  1. Click Save.

Enabling or Disabling One or More Scheduled Reports

You can disable one or more scheduled or recurring reports from the Schedule Manager page (Registry > Ticketing > Scheduler). If you previously disabled a scheduled or recurring report, you can start it again by enabling that report.

To disable or enable a scheduled or recurring report:

  1. On the Reports page (), expand the entry for Create Report, and select Scheduler. The Schedule Manager page appears.
  1. Select the checkbox icon for each scheduled process you want to enable or disable.
  2. Click the Select Action menu and choose Enable Schedules or Disable Schedules.
  3. Click the Go button.

You can also delete one or more scheduled or recurring reports by using the Delete Schedules option on from the Select Action menu.

Viewing Upcoming and Archived Scheduled Report Jobs

The Scheduled Report Jobs page (Report > Create Report > Scheduled Job / Report Archive) displays a list of all upcoming instances of scheduled report jobs. For example, if you schedule a PowerPack Information report to run once a day, the Scheduled Report Jobs page will display the PowerPack Information scheduled report job and its current status. This page automatically refreshes at a set interval; the default interval is 10 seconds.

In the silo.conf file, the auto_page_refresh setting under [ADHOC_REPORT_IN_BATCH] defines the interval at which this page refreshes, as well as other settings for ad hoc batch reports. For more information about updating the silo.conf file, see the section on Settings in Silo.Conf.

From the Scheduled Report Jobs page, you can also access the Scheduled Report Archive page by clicking the Archived Job button in the top right corner of the page. (You can click the Scheduled Job button to return to the Scheduled Report Jobs page.) The Scheduled Report Archive page displays a list of all past report jobs. For example, if you schedule a Device Availability report to run once every hour, the Scheduled Report Archive page will display each of the Device Availability reports that have already run.

To view a report from the Scheduled Report Jobs page:

  1. On the Reports page (), expand the entry for Create Report and select Scheduled Job / Report Archive. The Scheduled Report Jobs page appears:

  2. Click the Scheduled Job button in the top-right corner of the page. For each scheduled report job, the Scheduled Report Jobs page displays the following information:
  • Base Report. Name of the Custom Report used in the Report Job.
  • Report Job. Name of the Report Job that was used to generate the report. To edit the Report Job, click its wrench icon ().
  • Schedule. Name assigned to the scheduled process. To edit the schedule, click its wrench icon ().
  • Run As. Name of the SL1 user who created the scheduled report.
  • Type. Specifies how the report will be delivered. Choices are Email & Archive or Archive.
  • Recipients. The SL1 users and/or external contacts who will receive the report.
  • Status. The run-time status of the scheduled report. If the scheduled report is a recurring report and it fails, the fail count per day will appear in parenthesis. Hovering over the Failed status will display the reason for the failure.
  • Edited On. Date on which the report job was created or last edited.

To sort the list of report jobs, click a column heading. The list will be sorted by the column value, in ascending order. To sort by descending order, click the column heading again.

To view a report from the Scheduled Report Archive page:

  1. On the Reports page (), expand the entry for Create Report and select Scheduled Job / Report Archive. The Scheduled Report Jobs page appears.
  2. Click the Archived Job button in the top-right corner of the page. The Scheduled Report Archive page appears:

    For each archived report, the Scheduled Report Archive page displays the following information:

  • File Name. Name of the report instance. This name is a combination of the name of the Report Job used to generate the report, plus the date and time the report was generated. To download the report, select its disk icon ().

  • Report Job. Name of the Report Job that was used to generate the report. To edit the Report Job, click its wrench icon ().
  • Base Report. Name of the Custom Report used in the Report Job.
  • Ran As User. Name of the user who created the Scheduled Report.
  • Archive Status. Specifies if the report is active or archived.
  • Delivered Users. Number of users to whom a copy of this instance of the report was delivered. To see a list of users this report was delivered to, click the user icon ().
  • Email Recipients. List of Email addresses to which a copy of this instance of the report was Emailed. To see a full list of Email addresses, click the mail icon ().
  • Report Date. Date and time the report was generated by SL1.

Deleting an Archived Report

You can delete one or more archived scheduled reports from the Scheduled Report Archive page. This is useful for system administrators who might need to conserve disk space on their SL1 system.

To delete one or more archived reports:

  1. On the Reports page (), expand the entry for Create Report and select Schedule Job / Report Archive.
  2. Click the Archived Job button in the top-right corner of the page. The Scheduled Report Archive page appears.
  3. Find the instance of a scheduled report you want to delete and select its checkbox (). If you want to delete multiple instances, select multiple checkboxes.
  4. In the Select Action field in the lower right of the page, select one of the two options:

  • Delete Archived Reports. Deletes the selected report instances only if every user the report was delivered to has deleted the report from their Inbox. If you try to apply this option to a report instance that has an Archived Status of "Active", SL1 will not delete the report instance.
  • Delete Reports (Archived or Active). Deletes the selected report instances, regardless of whether the report is still in the Inbox for one or more users.

NOTE: Each of the options in the Select Action field is aligned with an Access Hook, to provide granular permissions for managing reports. Delete Archived Reports requires the Access Hook "Reports: Archive:Prune Archived". Delete Reports (Archived or Active) requires the Access Hook "Reports:Archive:Delete".