Creating Offline Object Sets

As with regular object sets, you can use offline object sets for both data collection and report generation. When online object sets are used, they must access the network to validate the objects. Offline object sets store this validation information in the Reporter database. Therefore, when offline object sets are used, there is no need to access the network for validation as this information is retrieved from the Reporter database.

If you are not connected to the network, your database must be on the same computer as the Reporter console to access the stored data.

For speed and bandwidth reasons, especially in larger deployments of Reporter, you may want to generate reports from stored data. Once the data has been collected and stored in the Reporter database, you can generate reports using the stored data and an offline object set, thus eliminating the need to query the network for either object validation or data collection.

When you use offline object sets to report on stored data, the benefits are twofold:

•	You can generate reports from a local Reporter database when disconnected from the network.

•	Reports are generated much faster as the database is referenced instead of querying the network.

You can synchronize the objects in the offline object set with live network data. During the synchronization, the validation information for those objects is updated with the most recent network information.

To create an offline object set

1.	Expand the Reporting node, then right-click Object Sets | New | Object Set.

2.	Click Next.

3.	Enter a name and description for the object set, then click Next.

4.	Click Add to open Object Picker dialog box.

– OR – 

Click Import and select the file.

For information on importing files, see Importing Users, Groups, and Computers.

5.	Select the objects you want in your object set.

For more information on selecting objects, see To create an object set.

To access an Active Directory member server, you must be a member of the local Administrators group on that computer.

6.	In the Object Picker, set the local options you want to apply to selected objects.

For more information about setting local options, see Setting Local Options in the Object Picker.

7.	In the Object Picker, set the global options you want to apply to all computers in your object set.

For more information about setting global options, see Setting Global Options in the Object Picker.

8.	Click OK to return to the Object Set Wizard.

9.	Click Next.

10.	To create an offline object set, select the Object Set is an Offline Object Set check box.

11.	Move the object types whose content you want to synchronize in the object set from the Object Types to Collect list to the Available Object Type list.

12.	Select the following synchronization options as required:

Select...	to...
Remove existing data before synchronizing	Clear any existing data for the objects in this object set from the database. Synchronization will result in the database being updated with current data for the objects in the object set.
Synchronize contents when finished	Synchronize the data after you complete the wizard. Existing data in the database will be updated to reflect the current status of the objects in the object set. Selecting this option allows you to report on objects that have been deleted from the database.

13.	Click Next after you select the appropriate synchronization settings.

14.	Review the settings, then click Finish.

The object set shows in the console. You can now run report templates based on this object set.