Reports Management

Introduction

The Men&Mice Suite manages vast amounts of DNS, DHCP, and IPAM data. The first version of reporting in the Web Application was introduced in version 9.1. To enhance the functionality in version 9.2, a new Reporting module has been created. Building reports is easy and can be tailor-made by correlating related data in a few steps, and scheduling the results to be generated daily, weekly or on a custom schedule. There are built-in report definitions that can be used as a reference to build reports. Using custom fields in the Men&Mice Suite further enhances reports by correlating custom fields with the built-in ones. The system then allows you to create reporting definitions that can be run either one time only, or scheduled to run later or at regular intervals.

The reports can be viewed within the Web Application, or downloaded in various formats for further analysis.

When the Reports section is opened in the Web Application, the user is presented with a list of report definitions. Like every other part of the Web Application, this list can be filtered and searched.

Reporting module

Users can:

• create and save new report definitions

• schedule reports to be generated

• run reports

• download reports in various formats

Main actions

The main actions are shown in the action list above the list of report definitions.

Create	Creates a new report. For more information, see Creating a new report.
Run	For more information, see Run now.
Properties	For more information, see Edit report definition properties
Schedule	For more information, see Schedule regular report generation
Delete	For more information, see Delete a report definition

The “Create” action can be run without selecting a report, but all the other actions require the user to first select a report from the list.

Additional actions for reports are described in report-actions.

Viewing the report definition list

A report definition is a recipe for the actual report. It contains the filter criteria used to build the report, along with scheduling information and other properties.

The list of report definitions is shown when first entering the Reports section.

For help with finding and organizing the reports, use the filtering sidebar on the left-hand side of the list.

All reports	Shows all report definitions.
Favorites	Shows report definitions that have been added to favorites. See Adding a report definition to favorites.
Category	Shows all report definitions that belong to a specific category.

Creating a new report

A new report definition can be created by clicking on the Create button above the report list, or by selecting the Create new report in the action list in the Inspector.

With the wizard, the user can:

• change the report definition’s source,

• edit its filter,

• select the columns to be included in the output,

• and then run the report.

Additionally, it is possible to schedule a report to be generated at specific times or intervals.

After running the report, the user is presented with a preview of the results and has the option of saving a copy of the report in a number of different formats. See Viewing the report results.

A description of each report source is described in Report sources.

Step 1: Select source

Select one of the existing reports or a data source as the basis of the new report definition.

Step 2: Edit filtering criteria

In the second step, the user has the option of editing the filtering criteria. The user might want to make some adjustments to the fields in the filter of the selected report definition, for example extending a time span or selecting a different username. It is also possible to change the filter completely and create a new report definition.

Conditions and parenthesis

Operator	Description
And	All the conditions have to be met
Or	Sufficient that any of the conditions are met

It is possible to add parenthesis to create sub-conditions with a different operator. The report definition shown in the screenshot above can be read as follows:

“Last seen must be less than one month ago, lost must be true and either claimed or usage must be true”.

This translates into: “Show me hosts that have not answered during discovery in the last month that are either claimed or in use.”

Comparison operator

Depending on the type of field the user is presented with different comparison operators.

String	Number, timespan, date	Boolean, pick-list, object
equals	=	is
doesn’t equal	!=	is not
contains	<
doesn’t contain	>
starts with	<=
doesn’t start with	>=
ends with
doesn’t end with
matches regex
doesn’t match regex

Step 3: Select columns

It is possible to select which columns are to be included in the report result.

Note

All available columns are selected by default.

Step 4: Save or run report definition

By checking the “Run once” box, the report definition will not be saved, and the user will be presented with a dialog that shows the report results.

Press the Finish button to run the report and get the results.

By checking the “Open scheduling dialog after saving” users can schedule periodic executions of the report.

Step 5: Schedule

In this step, report generation can be scheduled to run periodically. The frequency and the interval can be specified, and a start date can be set.

For more information, see Schedule regular report generation.

Step 6: Run the report definition

After the report has been created, it can be generated at any time by selecting the report definition in the list and clicking on the the “Run report” task. (See Viewing the report results.)

Viewing the report results

Viewing the list of reports

To view a list of all reports that have been generated for a particular reporting definition, double click on the reporting definition in the list.

This lists all reports along with the how much data is in the report (row count) and how long it took to generate the report (duration).

Double clicking on a report in this list allows you to preview a report.

Previewing and downloading a report

Previewing the report results can be done in various ways:

• Generating the report instead of saving it after going through the create report wizard.

• Selecting a report definition in the list and clicking on the “Run report” task.

• Preview a report result from a scheduled run:

  1. Select a report definition in the list.

  2. Find the “Reports” inspector item.

  3. Find a scheduled run of a report and click on the timestamp or the ellipsis and selecting “Preview” from the menu.

Note

The preview only shows up to the first 150 rows in the report. For the full report it needs to be downloaded.

In all cases, users will be presented with a preview of the report in a separate dialog. (As shown above.)

The results can then be downloaded by pressing the download button. The dropdown menu offers a number of file formats to select from (ie. CSV, XML, JSON or SYLK).

Tip

Sylk and CSV are handy for importing the data into a spreadsheet application for further processing.

Actions for reports

In the actions part of the Inspector, the available actions for each selected reports are shown.

Note

In the case of the reporting module not being enabled, the unavailable actions are greyed out.

Run now

Select a report definition in the list and click on the Run now action.

A dialog is displayed showing a preview of the report results. (See Viewing the report results.)

Schedule regular report generation

In this dialog a report can be scheduled to be generated at specific intervals. Additionally, it is also possible to specify a path to a script that will be run after the report is generated and also can scavenging be scheduled.

1. Select a report definition in the list and click on the Schedule action.

2. The following dialog is shown where scheduling and scavenging can be configured.

Settings for schedule.

Enabled	When checked, scheduling is enabled for this report
Frequency	Specifies the frequency in which the report is scheduled to run.
Every	Specifies the interval in which the report is scheduled to run.
Starts on	Specifies the starting date for the report to be run on.

By selecting for example ‘2’ and ‘Weeks’, a new report is generated at the selected start on date/time and then at every 2 weeks afterward.

Note

All dates and times are according to the time zone setting on the Men&Mice Central server.

Settings for Scavenging

Maximum number of reports to keep	Specifies how many reports will be retained in the system. This helps with making sure that disk space does not run out in case many large reports are generated in a small time interval.
Maximum number of days to keep results	Specifies for how many days the reoprts will be retained in the system. This helps with making sure that disk space does not run out in case many large reports are generated in a small time interval.

Duplicate an existing report definition

Use this option to create a new report definition based upon an existing one.

1. Select a report definition in the list and click on the Duplicate action.

2. The create new report wizard will be shown, and the user will be allowed to edit the filtering criteria for the new report. (As described in Step 2 in Creating a new report.)

Delete a report definition

1. Select a user defined report definition in the list and click on the Delete action.

2. A dialog is presented prompting the user if they want to delete the report definition.

Edit report definition properties

Both the report definition properties, the filtering criteria for the report and the data columns for the report results can be edited.

Note

Only user created report definitions can be edited.

1. Select a report definition in the list and click on the Edit report properties action.

2. A dialog is presented which allows for specifying the properties for the report, along with editing the filtering criteria.

3. Clicking on “Edit” for the filtering criteria brings up the following dialog:

Scavenge reports

Report results take up disk space on the Men&Mice Central server. The system allows for specifying the maximum number of reports (or the maximum number of days to keep each result) for each report definition. Oldest results are deleted when the limit is reached.

1. Select a report definition in the list and click on the Scavenge reports action.

2. A dialog is presented which allows for specifying the properties for scavenging reports.

Adding a report definition to favorites

1. Select a report in the list and click on the Delete action.

2. Click on the star button to the left of the Quick filter field:

Report sources

There are 24 reports definitions in the list under Reports (not counting user defined reports).

12 base report definition sources: sources that either allow the user to query one particular object type in the system (e.g. Activity); or sources that give access to a particular data relation in the system (e.g. Host discovery).

12 derivatives of the base report sources showing the specification possibilities they offer. (Zone creation/deletion building upon Activity and IP reconciliation building upon Host discovery.)

Report types	Built-in reports
Activity	Administrator login New users added Range creation/deletion Zone creation/deletion
Access[1]_
Address space merge conflicts[1]_
DHCP lease activity
Discovered hardware addresses with multiple addresses[1]_
DNS records	Address records Multi-labeled hosts
DNS zones	Enabled DNS zones of type slave
Host discovery[1]_	IP reconciliation Discovered devices
IP ranges
IP addresses
Lease hardware address with multiple IP addresses[1]_
Men&Mice Suite messages
SOA records	SOA records with abnormal minimum TTL value SOA records with abnormal refresh value

[*]

Specialized report source.

Filter field types

String, number	Free text input.
Date and time	Date time string or current time delta shorthand units, e.g. -2w, +1d.
Timespan	Timespan shorthand units, e.g. 24h, 2d, 30m
Object, boolean, options	A dropdown is presented with the available options.

Timespan formats

<num><time unit>
<time unit> ::= s (seconds), m (minutes), h (hours), d (days), w (weeks), M (months), y (years)

Date time formats

General date time format consist of date and/or time (separated by a space).

<datetime> ::= <date> <time>
<time> ::= HH:MM[:SS[:TTT]][ AM|PM]
<date> ::= [yy]yy-mm-dd
         | dd.mm.yy[yy]
         | mm/dd/yy[yy]

Timestamps formatted according to RFC3339.

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS[time-secfrac][time-offset]

Current time deltas, i.e. a date time relative from now, can also be used.

-|+ <num><time unit>
<time unit> ::= s (seconds), m (minutes), h (hours), d (days), w (weeks), M (months), y (years)

To include more than one value for a particular field the field has to be added again to the filter with an “OR” condition. (For example: the Address records, where the record type field has to be either A or AAAA.)