IT Analytics Solution Tutorial: Create and Publish Reports Using Report Builder

Report Builder is a component of SQL Server 2005 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 and viewed. This can be integrated with IT Analytics to expose custom reports built with Reporting Services inside the Altiris console.

In this exercise we will create a report to display the Computers that have less than a 1GHz processor.

1. From the Altiris 6.5 Console select the Configure>Solutions>IT Analytics menu item.
2. Expand the Configuration folder and select Report Setup.
3. Click the Report Builder tab.
4. Click the Launch Report Builder button.
5. From the "Select a source of data for your report" section select the "Computer - Enhanced" source.
6. In the Report Layout section in the bottom right portion of the screen select the radio button labeled "Matrix (cross-tab)" and click the OK button.
   
   

   Click to view.

7. From the Entities box select Computer
   
   

   Click to view.

8. In the Fields box scroll down to the bottom and drag and drop the System Manufacturer field into the box labeled "Drag and drop row groups"
   
   

   Click to view.

9. Drag and drop the Computer Model attribute to the right of the System Manufacturer.
   
   

   Click to view.

10. Scroll to the bottom of the Fields list and drag and drop the "Computer - Enhanced Computer Count (Aggregate)" measure into the box labeled "Drag and drop totals".
    
    

    Click to view.

11. Drag and drop the CPU Speed attribute from the Fields list to the box labeled "Drag and drop column groups".
    
    

    Click to view.

12. Preview the report by clicking the Run Report icon in the Report Builder toolbar. This will run the report in preview mode enabling us to see the data and how it looks.
13. Go back to the designer by clicking the Design Report next to the "Run Report" icon so we can make some final adjustments.
14. Add a title to the report by clicking in the Title textbox where it says "Click to add title".
15. Click the Filter icon in the toolbar to add a filter which will allow us to restrict the data to only those machines with less than a 1 GHz processor.
16. Drag the CPU Speed into the right pane and click the "equals" link to display a list of options.
    
    

    Click to view.

17. Select the Less Than option.
18. In the textbox type 1000 and click the OK button.
    
    

    Click to view.

19. Finally reformat the CPU Speed column header to read simply "CPU Speed".
    
    

    Click to view.

20. Preview the report again by clicking the Run Report button in the toolbar and make any other adjustments.
21. Click the Save icon in the Report Builder toolbar to save this report to Reporting Services.
22. To link this report into the Altiris Console navigate to the Reports>IT Analytics menu item.
23. Right-click on the reports folder and select New>Report.
    
    

    Click to view.

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

    Click to view.

25. Refresh your browser and expand the Reports folder.
26. Locate and select the report you just added.
    
    

    Click to view.