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This section will dive into advanced report creation in IT Analytics 7.1 using Microsoft Report Builder to create and publish a SQL Server Reporting Services report.

Report Builder is a component of SQL Server Reporting Services that allows ad-hoc reporting functionality, enabling end users to build their own reports and charts. Users can then publish these reports into Reporting Services where they can be accessed, viewed and incorporated back into IT Analytics alongside existing reporting.

NOTE: Although the output produced by Report Builder is integrated with IT Analytics, the tools and subsequent query language behind it are separate Microsoft entities and are thereby outside the default capabilities of the IT Analytics product itself.

In this exercise we will create a custom dashboard that displays the trend of Software Updates.

1. Launch a new web browser and type in http://localhost/reports.
2. Click Report Builder.

3. When Microsoft Report Building loads, click on the report body and in the Properties pane, expand Size and set the Width to 11in and Height to 8.5in.

4. Click on the text “Click to add title” and type in Software Update Dashboard.

5. In the Report Data pane, right-click on Data Sources and select Add Data Source.

6. Enter ITAnalytics as the data source name and select the “Use a connection embedded in my report” radio button.

7. Click on the dropdown for “Select connection type” and select Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services.

8. Click the build button in the Data Source Properties window.
9. In the Connection Properties window, enter . for the Server name, select IT Analytics as the database and click OK.

10. Click OK in the Data Source Properties window.
11. Right-click on Datasets and select Add Dataset.

12. In the Dataset Properties window, select the “Use a dataset embedded in my report” radio button, click on the dropdown for Data source and select ITAnalytics.

13. Click the Query Designer button in the Dataset Properties window.
14. Click the cube selector on the upper left part of the Query Designer.

15. Select Patch Management from the Cube Selection window.

16. In the Metadata pane of the Query Designer window, expand Measures > Patch Vulnerabilities.

17. Drag the Vulnerable Computer Count measure to the query pane.

18. Drag and drop the Software Update – Severity attribute to the query pane.

19. Click OK in the Query Designer window and the Dataset Properties window to go back to the main report builder.
20. Click on Insert in the report builder menu and select Chart and Chart Wizard.

21. In the New Chart window, select DataSet1 and click Next.

22. Select Pie under Chart Type and click Next.

23. From Available fields, drag Software_Update___Severity to the Series pane and Vulnerable_Computer_Count to the Values pane and click Next.

24. Select Generic under the Styles pane and click Finish.

25. Right-click on Chart Title and select Title Properties.

26. Change Title text to Vulnerable Computer Count by Severity or something appropriate and click OK.

27. Right-click on the legend area and select Legend Properties.

28. In the Legend Properties, set the following settings:
    1. Layout:  Column
    2. Legend position:  Bottom, centered

29. Click OK.
30. Select the chart and in the Properties pane, expand size and set Width to 5in and Height to 3in.

31. Preview the report by clicking the Run Report button in the toolbar and make any other adjustments.

32. After selecting the Run Report button you will be presented with a preview of your report with realtime data.

33. Select the Design button on the toolbar to return to the Design view.

34. Click the  icon in the Report Builder toolbar to save this report to Reporting Services IT Analytics folder and name it “Software Update Dashboard”.

35. To link this report into the Altiris Console Open the Altiris Console from the shortcut on your desktop then navigate to the Reports > IT Analytics > Dashboards folder.
36. Right-click on the Dashboards folder and select New > IT Analytics Report.

37. In the Report Type dropdown box, select Dashboard.

38. In the Report Name dropdown box locate and select the report you just saved and click the Add Report button.

39. Refresh your browser and expand the Dashboards folder.
40. Locate and select the report you just added.

OPTIONAL: In this exercise we will add an additional chart to the custom dashboard created above.

1. Repeat steps 11 to 19 from the exercise above to create another Dataset, but instead of using the measure, Vulnerable Computer Count in step 17 and the attribute Software Update – Severity in step 18, use Vulnerability Count for the measure and Software Update – Provider for the attribute.

2. Repeat steps 20 to 30 to create a second chart.  Use Dataset2 for step 21 instead of Dataset1.  For step 23, drag Software_Update__Provider to the Series pane and Vulnerability_Count to the Values pane.  For step 26, name the chart Vulnerability Count by Provider.

3. Move the newly inserted chart to the right of the Vulnerable Computer Count by Severity chart by dragging the chart using the  icon on the upper left corner of the chart.

Click the  icon in the Report Builder toolbar to save this report.

4. Open the Altiris Console from the shortcut on your desktop then navigate to the Reports > IT Analytics > Dashboards folder.
5. Locate and the report you just updated.