2.3 DRA Reporting

DRA Reporting provides built-in, ready-to-use reports that let you quickly track duplicate accounts, last account logons, Microsoft Exchange mailbox details, and much more. Reporting also provides real-time details of changes made in your environment, including before and after values for changed properties. You can export, print, or view reports, or publish them to SQL Server Reporting Services.

DRA provides two methods of generating reports that enable you to collect and review user account, group, and resource definitions in your domain: Activity Detail reports and DRA Management reports. Activity Detail reports, viewed through the Delegation and Configuration console, provide real-time change information for objects in your domain. For example, you can view a list of changes made to an object or by an object during a specified time period using Activity Detail reports.

The following figure shows a sample Activity Detail report:

Optional DRA Management reports, viewed through the NetIQ Reporting Center (Reporting Center), provide activity, configuration, and summarization information about events in your managed domains. Some Management reports are available as graphical representations of the data. These built-in reports can also be customized to give you exactly the information you need.

For example, you can view a graph showing the number of events in each managed domain during a specified time period using Management reports. Reporting enables you to view details about the DRA security model, such as ActiveView and AA group definitions.

You must install and configure the optional Management reports before you can view these reports. For more information about installing reporting components, see the Installation Guide. For more information about DRA Reporting, see DRA Reporting.

Start the Reporting Center Console in the NetIQ > Reporting Center program group.

The following figure shows the Reporting Center interface with DRA Management reports selected.

To learn more about DRA Reporting, see the following topics:

2.3.1 Understanding DRA Reporting

DRA Reporting provides two methods of generating reports that enable you to see the latest changes in your environment and to collect and review user account, group, and resource definitions in your domain.

Activity Detail reports

Accessed through the Account and Resource Management node of the Delegation and Configuration console, these reports provide real-time change information for objects in your domain.

DRA Management reports

Accessed through NetIQ Reporting Center (Reporting Center), these reports provide activity, configuration, and summarization information about events in your managed domains. Some reports are available as graphical representations of the data.

For example, you can view a list of changes made to an object or by an object during a specified time period using Activity Detail reports. You can also view a graph showing the number of events in each managed domain during a specified time period using Management reports. Reporting also enables you to view details about the DRA security model, such as ActiveView and AA group definitions.

DRA disables functions and reports that your license does not support. You must also have the appropriate powers to run and view reports. Therefore, you may not have access to some reports.

DRA Management reports can be installed and configured as an optional feature and are viewed in Reporting Center. When you enable and configure data collection, DRA collects information about audited events and exports it to a SQL Server database on a schedule that you define. When you connect to this database in Reporting Center, you have access to over 60 built-in reports:

  • Activity reports that show who did what, and when

  • Configuration reports that show the state of AD or DRA at a specific point in time

  • Summarization reports that show activity volume

For more information about configuring data collection for Management reports, see the Administrator Guide.

2.3.2 How DRA Uses Log Archives

In order to review and report on Assistant Administrator actions, DRA logs all user operations in the log archive on the Administration server computer. User operations include all attempts to change definitions, such as updating user accounts, deleting groups, or redefining ActiveViews. DRA also logs specific internal operations, such as Administration server initialization and related server information. In addition to logging these audit events, DRA logs the before and after values for the event so that you can see exactly what changed.

DRA uses a folder, NetIQLogArchiveData, called a log archive to securely store archived log data. DRA archives the logs over time and then deletes older data to make room for newer data through a process called grooming.

DRA uses the audit events stored in the log archive files to display Activity Detail reports, such as showing what changes have been made to an object during a specified time period. You can also configure DRA to export information from these log archive files to a SQL Server database that NetIQ Reporting Center uses to display Management reports.

DRA always writes audit events to the log archive. You can enable or disable having DRA write events to the Windows event logs as well.

For more information about DRA auditing, see the Administrator Guide.

2.3.3 Understanding Dates and Times

DRA uses the Short date style and Time style specified in the Regional Settings application in Control Panel for report display. DRA reports show UTC date and time as well as local date and time for events. DRA reports support the following date formats:

  • m/d/yy

  • m-d-yy

  • m/d/yyyy

  • m-d-yyyy

  • mm/dd/yy

  • mm-dd-yy

  • mm/dd/yyyy

  • mm-dd-yyyy

  • dd/mm/yy

  • dd-mm-yy

  • dd/mm/yyyy

  • dd-mm-yyyy

2.3.4 DRA Reporting Tasks

To generate DRA Management reports, install Reporting Center and enable data collection in DRA. For more information about enabling data collection, see the Administrator Guide. To generate Activity Detail reports, right-click over any object and click Reporting to see your choices for reports on that object. The following sections guide you through the various Reporting tasks.

Viewing Activity Detail Reports

Activity Detail reports display information about changes in your environment. You can view or print a report, as well as save a report in Excel, CSV, or TXT format. To view or print reports, you must be associated with the Reporting Administration role.

When viewing reports, enter criteria to specify the time period you want to display information about. You can also choose to view a report limited to changes made on specific DRA servers, and you can limit the number of rows to be included in the report. If the report size exceeds one of the following limits, DRA displays a message stating that the report is not complete:

  • Size exceeds 500 MB

  • Time needed to query all DRA servers exceeds 5 minutes

  • Number of rows to be displayed exceeds 1000

You have the option of viewing the report containing only the information retrieved before reaching one of these limits, or you can change the report criteria to view a report that meets these limits.

To view a report:

  1. In the left pane, expand All My Managed Objects.

  2. To specify the object for which you want to view a report, complete the following steps:

    1. If you know the object location, select the domain and OU that contains this object.

    2. In the search pane, specify the object attributes, and then click Find Now.

  3. In the list pane, right-click the object and click Reporting.

  4. Select the type of report, such as Changes made to objectName or Changes made by objectName. The available reports vary depending on the type of object you have selected.

  5. Select the start and end dates to specify the changes you want to view.

  6. If you want to change the number of rows to be displayed, type a number over the default value of 250.

    NOTE:The number of rows displayed applies to each Administration server in your environment. If you include 3 Administration servers in the report and use the default value of 250 rows to display, up to 750 rows can be displayed in the report.

  7. If you want to include only specific Administration servers in the report, select Restrict query to these DRA servers and type the server name or names you want the report to include. Separate multiple server names with commas.

  8. Click OK.

    NOTE:DRA might take up to 5 seconds to display recent changes in reports. Therefore, wait at least 5 seconds after making a change before you attempt to view a report that contains the change.

Exporting Activity Detail Reports

You can export Activity Detail reports in the following formats: XLS, CSV, and TXT. The default format is Microsoft Excel format.

To export Activity Detail reports:

  1. In the report window, on the File menu, click Preview and Export.

  2. In the Preview window, on the File menu, click Export Document > Excel File.

  3. Select your export options and click OK.

  4. In the Save as window, type a name for the file and click Save.

Printing Activity Detail Reports

To print reports, you must be associated with the Reporting Administration role. You can view or print Activity Detail reports, as well as save a report in various formats.

To print Activity Detail reports:

  1. In the report window, on the File menu, click Preview and Export.

  2. In the Preview window, on the File menu, click Print.

Viewing Management Reports

You must install DRA Reporting and configure the DRA data collectors to be able to view Management reports in Reporting Center. For more information about installing DRA Reporting and configuring the DRA Collectors, see the Administrator Guide.

When you log on to the Reporting Center, the Web Service uses IIS to validate the account credentials according to the way you configured the Web Service during installation.

To view Management reports:

  1. Log on to the computer that is running the Reporting Center Console.

  2. Start Reporting Center Console in the NetIQ > Reporting Center program group.

  3. Provide the required information in the Logon dialog box and click Logon.

  4. In the Navigation pane, expand Reports > DRA Management Reports.

  5. Expand the report categories until you find a report you want to view.

  6. Click the report name in the Navigation pane and the report will load in the center Results pane, displaying cached data.

  7. If you want to see the report using the latest data, click Execute Report in the Results Pane.

You can change the default context settings to display different report results. For more information about context settings in Reporting Center, see the Administrator Guide.

Customizing Management Reports

More than 60 Management reports are shipped with DRA. Reporting Center gives you the flexibility to customize and deploy these reports in many ways. For more information about customizing and deploying Management reports in Reporting Center, see the Administrator Guide.

To customize a Management report:

  1. View a report that is similar to a report you want to create. For more information, see Viewing Management Reports.

  2. Customize the report by changing the report properties and context settings to display the information you want.

  3. Click Execute Report.

  4. On the Report menu, click Save Report As and specify a report title and location to save the new report.

  5. Click Save.

For more information about working with Management reports in Reporting Center, see the Administrator Guide.