Configuration Manager 2012 provides bunch of built-in reports using SQL Reporting Services. In order to have these reports within ConfigMgr console you need a configured SQL Reporting Service. Then you need to install Reporting Services Point role for Configuration Manager 2012.
As I said, these reports are built-in reports. SQL queries, parameters and custom expressions are pre defined. You can get these information and edit or create your own reports easily. In this post I want to share one of my experience regarding a built-in report that did not meet with my requirement. I will try to show how I edited this report using Report Builder.
If you want to play with ConfigMgr reports, very first thing you need is Report Builder. To edit a built-in report, just navigate to reports folder, right click a report and choose edit.
But for the first time you may get following error message that indicates Report Builder is not installed:
With SQL Server 2008, Report Builder 2 is shipped. But if you are using SQL Server 2008 R2 as database server for ConfigMgr12 then you need to change following regedit key to point Report Builder 3 version which is default builder version for SQL Server 2008 R2.
- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\ConfigMgr10\AdminUI\Reporting\ReportBuilderApplicationManifestName
- Change value to ReportBuilder_3_0_0_0.application
After you successfully edit, navigate to reports node and click edit again.
I had a problem with the report “Hardware 10A-Computers in a specified collection that have changed during a specified timeframe” . I wanted to create an email subscription for the hardware changes. But this subscription must be daily and only must show data for yesterday. Thereby sccm admin will get report mail for hardware changes for only one day before.
But if you create a subscription using ConfigMgr console or Reporting Services Web site, SRS asks you for specific start and end dates. But I need to put a dynamic range which only includes previous day.
So I decided to use SRS web site to create a subscription as I can leave default for the start and end dates.
It worked great. There was no need to specify dates. But second problem was default values. As you see in above capture, by default report will be generated for whole month. Therefore I need to modify default range for this report.
I started Report Builder and checked for the parameters.
And find out that these reports have GlobalStartDate and GlobalEndDate parameters. Opened GlobalStartDate properties and checked for the default formula.
Here it is! This is why this report brings hardware change information for whole month. I just changed –30 to –1 and saved the report.
Now check default values again.
As you see range is only for one single day.
This is a simple modification. Using report builder you can create custom reports using custom expressions, parameters and Datasets. All you need to know is where your ConfigMgr asset data is stored.