Systems Management Server version 2.0 Crystal Info Reporting Tool

Published: February 1, 1999

Abstract

Microsoft® Systems Management Server collects vast amounts of data. Organizing and presenting this data is a challenge. This white paper provides a tutorial on the Crystal Info reporting tool for Systems Management Server and briefly introduces Systems Management Server 2.0 classes for reporting.

On This Page

Introduction
Understanding Crystal Info for Systems Management Server
Starting the Designer
Tutorial: Create a report
Working with Systems Management Server Reports
Troubleshooting Reports
Systems Management Server Classes
Dates and times
For More Information
Appendix A: Crystal Info for Systems Management Server Architecture Overview

Introduction

You probably have no shortage of network information. After all, Microsoft® Systems Management Server version 2.0 components generate and exchange a constant stream of operational, inventory, and status information. The challenge is to select the data most pertinent to your organization, to collect it in a timely manner, and to present it in a useful way. Crystal Info for Systems Management Server (Crystal Info) can help you organize information about the way Systems Management Server operates in your organization and prepare administrative information in an easy-to-read report format.

Crystal Info for Systems Management Server is a Systems Management Server–specific version of the fully featured product, Seagate Crystal Info version 6.0. Crystal Info for Systems Management Server is a Systems Management Server component that allows you to create, modify, schedule, and run reports by using data from the Systems Management Server site database. Several previously designed reports are provided with Systems Management Server 2.0. You can schedule and run these reports using the Systems Management Server Administrator console. You can also create new reports or modify existing ones by using the Info Report Designer. Crystal Info for Systems Management Server conforms to the interface and usage guidelines for the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) and is integrated into the Systems Management Server operational and data source environment.

Understanding Crystal Info for Systems Management Server

Crystal Info for Systems Management Server is an optional component that you can install only one way—by using the Systems Management Server Custom Setup option. With Custom Setup, you install the Systems Management Server Administrator console on a Systems Management Server primary site server. Although you can install Crystal Info for Systems Management Server when you install only the Systems Management Server Administrator console, Crystal Info must first be installed on the primary site server. After you run a report, the information displayed in the details pane of the Systems Management Server Administrator console consists of data, current at the time the report was run.

To query and manage information, Systems Management Server 2.0 uses Web Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) data classes, accessed through the Microsoft Windows® Management Service. In the current version, the only supported query language is the WBEM Query Language*,* referred to by its acronym, WQL**.** WQL is evolving as a subset of SQL, and originally did not support any join operations.

Crystal Info for Systems Management Server uses an ODBC (Open DataBase Connectivity) driver to convert SQL to WQL. The following diagram illustrates the data connectivity layers involved in reporting.

Figure 1: Data Connectivity Layers

Starting the Designer

There are two ways to start the Info Report Designer.

1. Right-click any report object under Reports in the console tree. Then click Task and choose from the menu shown below.

   

   Figure 2: Commands under Task

   You can design a new report or modify an existing one by choosing the Design New Report command or Modify Report command from this menu. Either command starts Info Report Designer.

2. If the console is not running, you can start the Designer by running C:\SMS\Cinfo\winnt\crw32.exe. Connect to APS with userID = Administrator.

Tutorial: Create a report

This tutorial demonstrates basic techniques for creating any report for Systems Management Server 2.0. Once you finish this tutorial, you will be familiar with the program and the many options available for accessing the Systems Management Server 2.0 data store. This tutorial will result in a report that shows all of the hard disk space that is free on your sites.

Start the Report Expert and Select the Systems Management Server Data Store

1. In the Systems Management Server Administrator console tree, navigate to any report object under Reports.

2. Right-click the report object, point to Task, and click Design New Report. When you first start the program, the Welcome dialog box appears as shown below.

   

   Figure 3: Welcome Dialog Box

3. Click New Report. The Report Gallery dialog box opens, as shown below.

   

   Figure 4: Report Gallery Dialog Box

4. Select the Standard Report Expert. This will help you create the report. For more information about creating other types of reports, click Help from the Report Gallery.

   The Create Report Expert opens, displaying the dialog box shown below. The Expert will guide you through the process of providing data for each tab in sequence. During this process, you will specify report properties such as the report data source, fields, and appearance. Once the report basics are specified, you may stop the Report Expert and view the report by clicking the Preview Report button.

   

   Figure 5: Create Report Expert Dialog Box

5. To specify a data source, click the SQL/ODBC button.

   Crystal Info for Systems Management Server can access a wide variety of data sources, but to report on Systems Management Server specific data, you must use the ODBC-WBEM data source.

6. In the Log On Server dialog box, specify ODBC - WBEM Source as your data source, and click OK. The Configure Connection dialog box opens, as shown below.

   

   Figure 6: Configure Connection Dialog Box

   Usually, the user account to which you are logged on can connect to the namespaces available on your site.

   • If your user account is a member of the Systems Management Server Adminstrators user group, or you are logged on as Administrator, you have the access permissions to connect to the Systems Management Server Provider. Skip to Step 10.

   • If you want the report to run under another user account—one that has access to the Systems Management Server site database—your account must have the Act a part of operating system advanced user right before you can specify that the report should run impersonating another account.

7. To specify that the report should run as another account, enter the appropriate data in User name and Password. To authenticate the user account you have supplied, click Impersonation. If the Systems Management Server site database is on a remote server, you do not need to select this check box.

8. To change the data source of the report, type the name of the Systems Management Server site database server in Server name, or click Browse to select the server name.

9. Click Connect. If the connection is successful, proceed to the next step. If not, see the section on Troubleshooting Reports later in this documentation.

10. The Namespace Selection box displays a tree structure:

    

    Click the plus sign next to root to expand the namespace tree.

11. Expand the Systems Management Server node in the same way. Select the site_<site code> node to select the Systems Management Server Provider namespace as a data source:

    

12. Click OK. If you are successful in logging on to the data source, you will receive a confirmation message and the Choose SQL Table dialog box will open, as shown below. If the logon attempt is not successful, verify your permissions.

    

    Figure 7: Choose SQL Table Dialog Box

13. In the SQL Tables box, select the SMS_R_System class and click Add. Then select the SMS_G_System_LOGICAL_DISK class and click Add. The selected tables will appear in the Data tab. Click Done.

14. The Create Report Expert now displays the Links tab. The WBEM tables you selected are displayed. Fields common to the tables are displayed as links between the tables.

    

    Figure 8: Create Report Expert Dialog Box

    For this report, link on the ResourceID field by clicking on ResourceID from the SMS_R_System class and dragging the mouse to the ResourceID in the SMS_G_System_LOGICAL_DISK class. Delete all other links by selecting each link, and clicking Delete.

15. Click Next to display the Fields tab**.** In this tab, add the following fields from the SMS_System_LOGICAL_DISK class:

    DeviceID, VolumeName, FileSystem

16. Remaining in the Fields tab, you will create and add a Percentage Free field. Click on the Formula button and type Percent Free in the Formula Name dialog box, then click OK. This brings up the Formula Editor, which will be used to create the calculated field. Type the following formula in the Formula Text: and click the Accept button.

IF {SMS_G_System_LOGICAL_DISK.Size} = 0 THEN 0 ELSE {SMS_G_System_LOGICAL_DISK.FreeSpace} % {SMS_G_System_LOGICAL_DISK..Size}

17. Add the @Percent Free formula to the Report Field: list.

18. Click Next and add the SMS_R_System.Name field to the Sort Fields: list.

19. Click on the Select tab and Add SMS_G_System.Description to the Select Fields: list, and then change the any value in the drop-down list box to equal to. Click on the last drop-down list box and choose Local Fixed Disk. This will exclude the appearance of floppy disks, network drives, and CD-ROMs from the report.

20. To view the report with the current data, in the Style tab, click Preview. To view the report layout with sample data, click Preview Sample. Reports are viewed from within Report Designer. You can save the report template file or switch directly to Design view to modify your report.

21. Before saving the report, on the File menu, click Options.

22. In the Report Options dialog box, verify that the Save Data with Report check box is not selected.

23. To update the report, press F5 or click Refresh.

    

    The Refresh button looks like a lightning bolt.

    A preview of the finished report is shown below:

    

    Figure 9: Info Report Designer Preview

Working with Systems Management Server Reports

In Systems Management Server, you schedule and view reports through the Systems Management Server Administrator console. Each report in the Systems Management Server Administrator console is an object that contains data from the basic report template file and the Crystal Info database. Report objects contain information about the data source of the object, access permissions, the most recent time the report was run, and other information. After creating a Crystal Info report template file, add a new report object to the Systems Management Server Administrator console, specifying the new file. When you delete a report object in the Systems Management Server Administrator console, you are not deleting the report template file.

Scheduling a report generates an instance of that report object and the data obtained, and stores them in \SMS\CInfo\Output. When you view a report, you view the last instance of the report, which contains the data that was current at the time the report was last run. To modify or create a new report template file, start Info Report Designer, which you can use to control the layout, data, and style of the report. Info Report Designer provides a Create Report Expert that guides you through the process of creating many different types of reports.

To Add a Report to the Systems Management Server Console Tree

To add a new report to Reports in the Systems Management Server console tree, first create a report object, and then specify a report file to which the object refers.

You cannot drag a report from one folder to another. Instead, delete the object and then add it to the target folder.

When you delete a report object from the Systems Management Server Administrator console, you are not deleting the report template file. As long as you do not delete the report template file, you can create another report object and specify the full path and name of the report template file.

1. In the Systems Management Server Administrator console, navigate to Reports.

Systems Management Server -->Site Database (site code - site name) -->Tools -->Reports

2. Right-click Reports, point to New, and click Folder.

3. Type the name of the new folder, and click OK.

After you create a report folder, you can add report objects to the folder.

Note: If you are creating or modifying a report, close the report in Info Report Designer before adding a report object to a report folder, or a sharing violation may result.

To add a report object to a report folder

1. In the Systems Management Server Administrator console, navigate to the folder to which you want to add a report object.

Systems Management Server -->Site Database (site code - site name) -->Tools -->Reports -->folder name

2. Right-click the report folder, point to New, and click Report Object.

3. In the New Report Object dialog box, type the full path to the report you want to add.

4. Type a title for the report and an optional description.

The new report object will appear in the folder.

Scheduling Reports

A report must be scheduled and successfully run before you can view it. When a report has run successfully, the results appear in the details pane of the Systems Management Server Administrator console when you navigate to the report.

Crystal Info for Systems Management Server offers a wide range of scheduling options. You can schedule a report to run immediately or specify that the report will run at a day and time of your choice.

Note: To minimize the impact of reporting on server performance, consider scheduling reports to run when network activity is low.

To schedule a Crystal Info report

1. In the Systems Management Server Administrator console, navigate to Reports.

Systems Management Server -->Site Database (site code - site name) -->Tools -->Reports

2. In either the console tree or the details pane, right-click a report, point to Task, and click Schedule Report <report name>.

3. In the Schedule Report dialog box, click the General tab, and then click Refresh.

4. Click the Accounts tab.

5. In Logon User Name, type the name of the user account that has the Act as part of operating system advanced user right, and provide a valid password.

6. Click the Schedule tab (shown below), and specify whether to run the report on a particular day and time, or immediately. To run the report on a recurring basis, select how often you want the report to run under Recurrence.

To change the database account logon information or to modify a report's selection formula or prompts, navigate to the Accounts, Selection Formula, or Prompts tab and change the settings as appropriate before you schedule the report.

A report, once run, displays an icon indicating success or failure. If a report fails, see the section on Troubleshooting Reports later in this documentation.

Troubleshooting Reports

This section describes the most common causes of Crystal Info report failure and techniques for solving them.

No data exists in the Systems Management Server site database.

Discovery data might not exist in the database. In this case, wait until discovery has been run at the site before running reports. Make sure discovery is enabled in Client Agent Properties.

Report properties are the wrong datatype, or reports do not perform sorting and grouping properly.

Make sure the ODBC driver file, WBEMDR32.dll, is dated August 1998 or later.

The user running the reports does not have sufficient user rights to run the report against the specified database.

The user account running the report must have the Act as part of operating system advanced user right to impersonate an account that can access the data. To grant this right, run User Manager for Domains.

The report template file uses an inaccessible database.

If you have received a report file from another site, you must first run the Set Location tool to specify the correct database for Crystal Info to report against.

Running Set Location fails.

Determine whether the user account under which you are running Set Location has access permissions to the report folder. Browse to \SMS\CInfo\Samples\SMS and verify access rights.

You receive an error message when you click Reports in a remote Systems Management Server Administrator console.

If you install a remote Systems Management Server Administrator console on a computer running the Microsoft Windows NT® Workstation operating system 4.0 while you are logged on as a domain administrator, the Info APS service will not start automatically. As a result, when you click Reports in the Systems Management Server Administrator console, you will receive an error message.

To resolve this problem, on the remote computer, in Control Panel, double-click the Services icon. Select the Info APS service, and then click Startup. Change the Startup Type to Automatic, and then click OK. Restart the Systems Management Server Administrator console.

A report takes a long time to run.

If you have used aliases for the WBEM class tables, and if you inadvertently chose a word reserved by Microsoft SQL Server™ as an alias, the report may take significantly longer to run. To resolve this problem, modify the alias, and rerun the report. For information about SQL Server reserved words, see SQL Server Help.

While creating or modifying a report, connecting to the Systems Management Server namespace selection fails.

If the account under which you are logged on does not have access to the Systems Management Server database, the user account you are using must have the Act as part of operating system advanced user right to impersonate an account under which the report can run. Alternatively, you can add the user account to the Systems Management Server Administrators user group.

Systems Management Server Classes

In Systems Management Server 2.0, reporting is against WBEM instead of a SQL Server database, treating classes exactly like tables. Out of more than 200 Systems Management Server classes, reporting requires fewer than 70.

Learning About Classes

1. Follow the tutorial example in this documentation on creating a report.

2. Study the tables in this section that list the classes used most often, which are grouped into five types.

3. Use the Resource Explorer to become familiar with the Hardware and Software Inventory Classes.

4. Under the System Status node, open the Status Message Viewer and under the View menu, choose Query Information to see how the Status classes are used.

5. Examine Query properties to see which classes are used.

6. You may also use WBEM documentation to find information about the many Systems Management Server Provider classes and properties that are not documented elsewhere. For Hardware Inventory classes, the Systems Management Server provider inherits the classes of the Microsoft Win32® application programming interface, WBEM provider. The Win32 provider inherits from the CIM classes and properties.

Types of Classes Used for Reports

• Resource Classes

• Hardware Inventory

• Software Inventory

• Status and Summarizer

• Software Distribution

• Product Compliance (year 2000)

Resource Classes

Both hardware and software inventory classes are considered resource classes.

Hardware classes can have three prefixes:

Hardware Inventory Classes

An Instance of the Logical Disk Class

The following table shows a hardware resource class along with sample data and a description of each property. (To see how to report Percentage space from FreeSpace and Size, refer to the section, Tutorial: Create A Report, earlier in this documentation.

Logical Disk Class (SMS_G_System_LOGICAL_DISK)

Software Inventory Classes

Files that are discovered on computers are examined for header information, which is stored in Software Files and Software Products. For files without this information, for example, Microsoft MS-DOS® operating system files, the file name and size is stored in Unknown Files.

Logical Disk Class (SMS_G_System_LOGICAL_DISK) (cont'd)

Status and Summarizer Classes

For detailed information about events for troubleshooting (for example, when and where error messages were generated), you need to use Status classes. If you are creating Crystal Info reports that are based on queries of the status message tables, be aware that data is stored in those tables for seven days, by default. Plan your queries accordingly.

Summarizer Classes contain current status or tallies of events. Unlike Status, they do not expire after seven days, but do have tally intervals that you should be aware of.

Logical Disk Class (SMS_G_System_LOGICAL_DISK) (cont'd)

Software Distribution Classes

These classes define the software distribution process. However, to troubleshoot problems, you will also need the Status classes.

Logical Disk Class (SMS_G_System_LOGICAL_DISK) (cont'd)

Product Compliance Year 2000 Classes

Logical Disk Class (SMS_G_System_LOGICAL_DISK) (cont'd)

Selecting Classes for Reports

• If you need to identify the computer, select SMS_R_System first. Link it to other classes by the ResourceID key.

• Multiple Resource classes can be joined together by ResourceID. The ultimate limiting factor is the number of joins that the database can support. Performance may suffer with more than 10 classes joined together.

• For ideas on choosing and linking classes for reports on Software Distribution and/or Status, consult the following diagram, Systems Management Server Software Distribution and Status Related Classes.

Dates and times

When creating reports that include dates and times, keep in mind the following:

• Time is stored in the database as local time or GMT according to the following rules:

  1. Status messages are all GMT.

  2. Advertisements (Offers) can be GMT or local time, depending on a switch set in the Advertisement UI. The property in SMS_Advertisement is AssignedScheduleIsGMT (True/False).

  3. Inventory is always local time.

• The status message viewer can convert to local time, but Crystal Reports cannot make time-zone conversions and will only show what is stored. For example, a time would appear to be seven hours later on a report than in the status viewer (if local time is Pacific Daylight). As a workaround for Advertisement reports, you could print GMT or Local based on the value of the AssignedScheduleIsGMT property.

  There are two datatypes for date:

  1. WBEM date: This is a long string. Use the first 14 characters, which are in "yyyymmddhhmmss" format, where "hh" is hours (24-hour clock).

  2. Time-Date: This is a familiar datatype, but you may wonder why you can't print the time, only the date. Timestamp fields are converted to Date or Date-Time depending on a setting in the Info Report Design. Under the File menu, choose Report Options and select the appropriate option.

For More Information

Refer to the Systems Management Server 2.0 Administrator's Guide

For the latest information on Systems Management Server, check out our World Wide Web site at https://www.microsoft.com/smsmgmt.

Appendix A: Crystal Info for Systems Management Server Architecture Overview

Crystal Info for Systems Management Server is an MMC snap-in. The Sentinel is the backbone of Crystal Info network communications, and must be loaded on all workstations running a Crystal Info component. The APS (Automated Process Scheduler) handles all report requests. The APS has a separate system database and users must log into it. The Info server does the actual processing of a report template and saves the instance that you see in the Systems Management Server console results pane.