How do I Add filters for database reports?

Article created 2005-05-03 by Hamid Ali Raja.

1. You would need Base Product Key and Window Reporting Module or Pix Reporting Module Key for this scenario.

2. Once MonitorWare Console 2.1 is opened, on the left hand side, you can see a tree view with a node called "Reports". Click on that node. It will show you the list of available reports under it as well as on the right hand side. You will see something similar to the following figure:

You can now click on any of the displayed reports. For the purpose of this article, I have selected "System Status Report" because it is a very comprehensive report and summarizes the overall network activity very well. Once you click on the System Status Report, you will see something similar to the figure shown below.

Note: Windows Reports are displayed in a band of Lilac whereas the PIX Reports are displayed in a band of Blue.

3. Once you click on System Status Report, the following form will be displayed:

4. This form displays the report options. If you double clicked on any "Report", then in that case, this form will open up with default options that you had set. (For details about defining global settings, please refer to MonitorWare Console's Manual which can be accessed by pressing the Help button in MonitorWare Console's tool bar). These settings help you out if you want to generate many reports with almost the same settings.

5. After setting the general options, click on "Database Reports" tab. MonitorWare Console provides a powerful feature of letting users define and apply filters on any report. Using this form is further explained in the upcoming steps, you can apply the filters of your own choice on the underlying database.

Click here for getting a brief description of the fields present on this form.

6. Lets say you are interested in applying the following filter condition for your report:

( ( EventID is one of (500,1000,2000,3000) ) AND ( FromHost is not equal to WS01 ) )

                                                                AND

( ( EventSource is equal to Security ) OR ( Priority is greater than 5 ) )

To accomplish this, you will have to follow the following steps:

6a) Click on AND button. After clicking on AND button it will add a new node under the existing AND button. Your filter form will look like this:

6b) Select the lower AND from the tree view and click on Add Filter Button and select EventID from the list. Now select "is one of" from the "Select Operator" combo box. Now, either select or type 500 in the "Select Lower Value" combo box and press on "Add" button on the left side. Now select or type 1000 and press the "Add" button again. Again select or type 2000 and press "Add" button. Again select or type 3000 and press "Add" button. Once done, press on "Set Value" button on the right side. In general, whenever you are done with any filter, you will have to pres the "Set Value" button in order to set its value. After applying this filter, your filter form will look like this:

6c) Click on the lower AND in the tree view (under which you want to add another condition now) and click on "Add Filter >" button and select "FromHost" from the list. Then from the "Select Operator" combo box, select "is not equal to" and in the "Select Lower Value" combo box, either type or select "WS01". Once done, click on "Set Value" button. The filter form will look similar to the one shown below:

6d) Now select the top level AND in the tree view (under which you now want to add an OR) and click on "OR" button from the right side. It will add a new OR node in the tree view.

6e) Click on this newly added OR node in the tree view and click on "Add Filter >" button and select "EventSource". From "Select Operator", select "is equal to" and in "Select Lower Value" combo box, either type or select "Security". Once done, click on the "Set Value" button. The filter form will look like this:

6f) Click on OR node in the tree view (under which you want to add a new filter condition). Click on "Add Filter >" button and select "Priority". From "Select Operator" combo, select "is greater than" and in "Select Lower Value" combo box, either type or select 5 and press "Set Value" button. After this step, your filter form will look like this:

6g) You are done! If you notice in the yellow text field at the bottom of the filter form, you will see exactly the same filter condition string as the one that I wrote above when I started this example.

7) If you press on the "Generate Report" button, it will generate the report with the applied filters. However if you intend to generate this report with the same filters every day or quite often, then you should save the report by pressing on the Save Report button. This report will be saved under the "System Status Report" (for this example) in the Report Manager.

8) If you want to schedule this saved report with the same filters, you can do that too by going in the Job Manager.