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Introducing Quest Reporter : Generating Reports : Generating a Report

Generating a Report
You can generate reports in the following ways:
Selecting objects through the following nodes in the Reporter console: Windows NT, Active Directory, IP Subnet, or Object Set
Administrative rights are required on all computers where you want to run report templates. Otherwise, reports can be generated but not all information may be collected.
To generate a report
1.
– OR – 
Right-click a report template and select Run Report.
The Objects, Filter, Collection, and Output tabs are displayed by default. You can configure the tabs that will be displayed. For more information, see Configuring the Tabs in the Report Dialog Box.
You can also expand Windows NT or Active Directory nodes. Right-click the objects that you want to report on, and select Reporting | Run Report.
2.
If you are generating a duplicate object report, use the Duplicate Objects tab to set the attributes for comparison.
If you are not generating a duplicate object report, the Duplicate Objects tab will not be available, and you can skip to the next step.
The duplicate object reports are pre-configured to check specific attributes for duplication. For example, the Duplicate Computers report identifies all computers across the chosen domains that have the same name.
To change the source attribute, clear the existing checkbox, and select the desired attribute. In the target attribute column, click <Attribute> and select the attribute to compare to the source.
Reporter compares the values of the source and target attributes. The objects with matching values appear in the report. The attributes available vary depending on the report you have chosen. You can only choose one source and one target attribute (and often they may be the same attribute). Not all attributes produce meaningful results when used as a basis of comparison.
You should only change the source and target attributes when you want to report on information that is different than the preconfigured report. For information on customizing duplicate object reports, see Creating Custom Report Templates.
3.
Click the Objects tab, click Add, and select the objects to report on.
Use the Query option to set search parameters for the objects you are reporting on. Reporter finds the most current information at the time the report is generated. For more information on using queries, see To create an object set.
4.
If you have included any offline object sets and want to ensure they are current, right-click each one and select Synchronize while reporting.
This will configure the offline object set to be synchronized when the report is run. Offline object sets should be synchronized with the environment to ensure the contents are accurate.
If you are reporting on stored data using an offline object set, the Synchronize while reporting option will have no effect.
5.
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7.
For more information on applying filters, see Applying Filters to Attributes.
8.
Click the Collection tab and select from the following options:
Select this if you want to collect current data from your environment for reporting. The amount of data being collected can impact the amount of time required to produce report results.
This is the default option for source content, with the exception of certain QAS report templates.
Select this if you want to report using data previously collected and stored in the Reporter database.
This method of reporting can significantly improve report performance as no live collection is taking place. However, live enumeration against the objects on the network still occurs. To avoid this, you must use offline object sets. For more information on offline object sets, see Creating Offline Object Sets.
Show change history information
Select this if you want to display change history information. If you have selected the Live Collection option, the reported changes come from a comparison of freshly collected data with previously stored data.
Note: For this to be enabled, you must select the Collect change history information option in the Configure utility.
If you have selected the Stored Data option, the reported changes are a result of comparing iterations of stored data.
When you select to show change history information, you must enter the date range information.
Use linked data from the database
There may be instances when a fresh linked collection is not necessary. For example, if you do a collection on groups and link in users, you may not want to collect linked users if you have just done a collection on all the Domain users.
Select this option if you want to collect nested group membership when doing group collections. You can select a nesting level between 2-99. (By default, nesting is turned on and set to nest 10 levels deep.)
Clearing this option disables the nesting levels and reports only the first-level groups.
By default, members of the Domain Users group are not collected. You can configure Quest Reporter so that it collects this information. Run the Configure tool by clicking Start | All Programs | Quest Software | Quest Management Suite | Reporter | Configure. On the Reporter Collections tab, select Collect Members of Domain Users in Nested Group Collections.
9.
Click the Output tab and select from the following options:
Note: These options apply to any fully formatted report output, for example, screen, HTML, PDF, Word or RTF. Text based outputs such as CSV, tab delimited, and Excel are not altered by these options.
Select this option if you want the report results to be displayed once the report has been generated.
If you select File, select a file type, enter a file name for the report, and browse to the folder where you want to save the report.
Append datestamp to file name
One file per page of report
Select this option if you selected HTML as the file type and you want one HTML file generated for each page of the report.
10.
Click OK.
These values are not saved; you must set them every time you want to run a predefined report template. If you want to save the settings, you can save the report template as a favorite. For more information, see Using Favorites for Frequent Reporting.
When a report is generated, a log file is created that lists all the actions which occurred during report generation. Other information, such as the version of Reporter, the user who generated the report, and the computer where the report was generated, is also included at the beginning of the log. The default folder where these log files are located is C:\Program Files\Quest Software\Quest Management Suite\Reporter\ReporterLogs. For information about changing the default path, see Configuring Log Settings.
For information on using more advanced report features and managing report properties, see Creating Custom Report Templates and Favorites.