Working with Custom Reports

Your organization may use a suitable strategy to create a set of custom reports. The following are some example strategies that could be used to create a set of custom reports.

Demand-based reporting

You can create a set of reports to meet the demands of one or more users such as a software asset manager. The following list provides a set of example questions that you can ask yourself before building a set of reports:

• What type of reports are required to provide data on current license position?

• Which reports should be good to better prepare for software audits or true-ups?

• Which reports should be helpful in accessing CALs usage?

Software asset management maturity level-based reporting

Reports can be used to measure software compliance against a specific Software Asset Management (SAM) maturity level (SAML). For each additional level of compliance, you may need to produce additional reports. For example,

• For the first level, you may need some reports reflecting software installations on various inventory devices within your organization.

• The second level may require additional reports on license compliance and unlicensed application installations.

• The third level may require some advanced reports like unrecognized evidence or scheduled payments.

Task-based reporting

You can also create reports based on the software license optimization tasks that are performed on a regular basis. For example:

• A Monthly Tasks folder might have the following set of reports:

  • Devices in storage for over three months

  • Multiple assets assigned to a user

• A Weekly Tasks folder might have the following set of reports:

  • Assets assigned to terminated employees

  • License compliance changes for a publisher

Reports folders

To separate the custom reports from the inbuilt reports, it is recommended that you create a new folder hierarchy to save your custom reports. You can use the Create a folder, Rename folder, and Delete folder icons (on the Reports Index page) to manage folders.

• Create a folder:

  • To create a subfolder, select its parent folder from the Reports Index page and click the Create a folder icon.

  • To create a custom folder structure, you need to highlight the folder where you will create your structure (the top level to start), click the Create Folder icon, and provide a folder name.

    tip

    Avoid confusing your custom reports with the inbuilt reports by creating your own folder structure for all your custom reports. Private reports should ideally only be created in your own personal use folders, and public reports created in general/team folders.

• Rename folder:

  1. Select the required folder and click the Rename folder icon.

  2. Enter the new folder name and click the check icon to save the new name or the discard icon keep the original folder name.

• Delete folder:

  1. Select the folder to delete and click the Delete folder icon located above the folder list.

  2. Review the dialog message to see which of the following actions will occur if you continue:

     • You can delete the folder and all of its children.

     • The folder cannot be deleted. This occurs when the selected folder or any of its child folders contains hidden private reports that were created by other operators. Instead, you will be given the option to delete all public reports and all of your private reports that exist within the folder and its child folders. If you proceed with this option the folders and the private reports of other operators will remain in their existing folder structure and all other folders and reports will be permanently deleted.

  3. Click OK if you want to proceed with the option provided.

  tip

  You cannot delete or rename the inbuilt folders.