Run Report Using Analysis Dashboard

The Analysis Dashboard is another way of running the OLAP reports and viewing, saving, and printing the results. It is integrated in the AbatConsole interface and is accessed by navigating to the Views > Scheduling Analytics folder. Click on the Analysis Dashboard menu option.

 

 

Analysis Dashboard (within Scheduling Analytics)

 

When you click Analysis Dashboard, ActiveBatch will connect to your SQL report server where the ActiveBatch reports were uploaded. During the initial connection, a progress message will be displayed as below:

 

Connecting to the Report Server

 

After connecting your report server, the Analysis Dashboard collects the list of reports that are available. 

 

Note: In order to view and execute ActiveBatch reports through the Analysis Dashboard, the connected user should be a “System User” on the Report Server and a Content Manager for the ActiveBatch Reports’ folder.

 

List of Reports

 

We’ll examine the toolbar's Properties button a bit later in this section. The next toolbar option is what type of reports you would like to see. The “Show” dropdown provides two (2) categories of reports: Dashboard type and Full Sized type. The difference is purely a question of formatting and optimization. Certain reports need more room to be properly displayed. You can also select the “All Reports” (default) to be able to select from the full gallery of reports. To see the list, click the dropdown that says “Select Reports”. The dropdown contains checkboxes next to each report. If the checkbox is selected, the report is enabled for viewing. You can add or remove a report by setting or clearing the checkbox. The next toolbar property is the “Date Range” which allows you to specify a date range for the report. This Date Range property should be thought of as a global value. This means that all reports that are run will use that date range. You can later on, select a different date range for each selected report.

 

To run selected reports click on the “Execute” toolbar button. If your report has extra parameters, you will need to fill them and click the “View Report” button to run the report. Last Day and Last Week are provided as pre-defined date ranges for the report; you can specify a custom date range by checking the check box next to Start Date, and filling in the start and end dates. 

 

Sample Dashboard Reports

 

The centered title indicates the date range for these reports (by default that is Today). If you mouse over any of the reports an “expand report” and “close report” set of icons appear to the extreme right. Close Report is simple enough but clicking on Expand Report, for example, on AverageJobRun_WaitTime, causes the following to occur.

 

Report Pop-up

 

The report is expanded and pops out of the viewing grid. A new menu bar appears underneath the report.

 

 

Menu Bar (Analytics Dashboard)

 

The menu bar allows you to resize the report as well as print or save it. If the report is multiple pages you can page through it. The icons to the left of the Refresh icon are disabled. The floppy disk icon allows you to save the report in several different formats (including CSV and PDF).

 

Clicking the Refresh icon causes the Parameters section to be displayed:

 

 

This section is similar in content described in the Run Report Using a Web Browser - parameters section. You can make changes here that would be specific to this report. To hide this parameter section, note the second icon from the left on the Report Menu.

 

Several of the full size reports use charts and graphs for better understanding of the information. Several of those individual charts can be clicked on to drill down into the source information. For example:

 

 

This report, Dashboard by Job Scheduler, is a full sized report that provides information about the objects completion and other statuses for a specific Job Scheduler. If you click on the “Success Percentage” graph you’ll see the following report.

 

 

This report provides greater insight into why a particular graph looks the way it does. This report can be printed or managed as any other. Please note that once you drill down into a report, you can’t go back up (you can if you use the Web Browser method of running reports). The simplest way of obtaining the top level report is to click on “Execute” and regenerate the reports.

 

The Analysis Dashboard connects your SQL reporting server to retrieve the information about your reports and data sources. You can view the connection information that the dashboard uses by clicking the toolbar's Properties button. The properties window shows your reporting server’s location, the folder on the reporting server where your reports are stored, and the location of the UpdateReportingDatabase job on your job scheduler. This job is used to refresh data in your ActiveBatch reporting database and OLAP cube.

 

Dashboard settings

 

The ActiveBatch installation provides seven extra reports that are designed to be viewed in the Analysis Dashboard. These dashboard reports are smaller than the other reports, show data only for the current job scheduler and have very few (one or two) parameters to make them easier and faster to run. You can filter your reports dropdown and the dashboard to show the dashboard reports only, by checking the “Show Dashboard Reports Only” box. 

 

When you close the Analysis Dashboard, all of your changes and selections will be saved on a per user basis, on the machine where the Analysis Dashboard was used.