Example: Creating a Custom Report

In this example, we will use the Report Wizard to create a custom Administrator Actions report sorted by Site Name, like one shown below. The example assumes you have installed ARM with SQL Server Express and have performed administrator actions in EFT Server, such as creating users, stopping/staring sites, and so on.

To create the report

  1. In the Administrator, connect to EFT Server, then do one of the following:

  2. The Create New Report dialog box appears.

  3. Type a title for the new report, then click Create. The Report Designer appears.

  4. So far, all you have done is opened the VSReport Designer, which allows you to open the New Report Wizard, which we will do next. You will delete this "template" later.

  5. Click File > New Report or click the New Report icon on the toolbar. The New Report Wizard appears.

  6. Do one of the following:

  7. On the Provider tab, click Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server as the provider to connect to the SQL Server database, then click Next. The Connection tab appears.

  8. In Select or enter a server name, click the arrow to select a name or type the name of EFT Server.

  9. In Enter information to log on to EFT Server, click an authentication option to log on to EFT Server:

  10. Select the Blank password check box if EFT Server requires a blank password to log on the database server. Even if you do not type any password when you create a user account on a database server, you can select the Allow saving password check box. In this case, EFT Server takes a dummy password value and saves that value in the connection string. Selecting the Blank password check box disables the password field.

  11. Click one of the following:

  12. Click OK in the Data Link Properties dialog box to return to the New Report Wizard.

  13. Click Table, then click tbl_AdminActions.

  14. Click Next. The fields that appear in the Available list are from the table you selected in the previous step.

  15. Move each of the fields into the Detail box except ID and Transaction. You can double-click the field or click it and then click the right-facing arrow.

  16. Click and drag SiteName to the Groups field, then click Next. The layout options appear.

  17. Keep the default settings and click Next until you get to Step 5. (For details of using the report wizard to define layout options, refer to Creating a Report with the Report Wizard.)

  18. Type a title for the report, then click Finish.

  19. Let's get rid of that "new" template that was created when you opened the VSReport Designer. In the left pane, click the name of the template you want to remove (in this case, new), then click the delete icon on the toolbar.

  20. Click File > Save or click the Save icon on the toolbar.

  21. Click File > Exit to close VSReport Designer. The report appears in the tree on the Reports tab.

  22. In the right pane, click Show Report. The report appears in the preview pane.

  23. You could filter the results as needed, such as show results only for certain Sites, a specific administrator account, or a certain date.

  24. Click Save As to save the report as a PDF. The report displays EFT Server administrator actions sorted by Site Name and Server.