Self Informed: ReportCenter

Do you need to keep track of changes in your environment? Do you want to know "who" changed "what", "when" and "where"?

ReportCenter is a tool for tracking operational activity as it happens and generating historical reports. ReportCenter is a standalone repository that collects activity events from various ControlTier components including commands run from CTL, jobs run though JobCenter, and changes to the data model made in Workbench. Currently, ReportCenter's primary use is for viewing activity reports. However, we have big plans for it.

Current Features:

• View list of all activity
• Filter list of events by type, date, job name (if any), user, etc.
• Create custom RSS feeds of activity for viewing in external readers
• Integration with JobCenter and Workbench web interfaces
• External tools can query the ReportCenter repository using a web-based API
• Create and plug-in fully customizable report templates and logic (using BIRT from the Eclipse project)

Upcoming Features:

• Set custom notifications (email or RSS) for events sent to ReportCenter that match specific patterns
• Visual representations of ReportCenter data
• Tags and simple API so you send events to ReportCenter from your existing scripts and tools

ReportCenter (along with CTL, JobCenter, and Workbench) is installed by the ControlTier installer.

Go here for instructions on how to use the ControlTier installer

The ReportCenter application is installed and configured via the ControlTier installer so getting started is easy.

Choose: Start off by going to the ReportCenter main page. You can go to the ReportCenter URL directly, or navigate to it from JobCenter or Workbench.

Choose the kind of report you are interested in. For example, if you are interested in the activity managed by JobCenter then choose "Jobs". This will bring up the most recent job history.

Customize: You may be interested in looking for particular kinds of activity. ReportCenter lets you filter the history by various key words as well as, by date range.

Press the "Filter" button to bring up the filter panel.

You may also want to customize the report format, including or excluding particular columns. Press the "Customize Report" button to configure your output.

Subscribe: Now that you have chosen, filtered and configured your report activity, you can now keep up to date via an RSS feed. Press the "RSS" button to access the feed link.

Paste the RSS URL into your favorite RSS reader.

ReportCenter has built in integration with the Eclipse BIRT framework. Create your own report templates using the BIRT design tool and then execute your custom report at any time.