A Custom Report is a customised Microsoft Excel report template which can be used to generate reports on the data in the InfoAsset Manager database.
The Custom Report is based on a Microsoft Excel file. When the report is first created it must be associated with an existing template. There is a basic example included in the Template directory (below the InfoAsset Manager install directory) for this purpose. Files of type .xls, .xlsx or .xlsm may be used as a template. When using versions of Excel 2007 and later: .xls and .xlsx report templates will generate .xlsx reports and .xlsm templates will generate .xlsm reports.
Once the Excel file is associated with a Custom Report, a copy is saved in the database and this copy can be worked on from then on. This makes the reports fully portable.
New reports can be created by:
- Copying an existing report in the database and then editing the underlying Excel file
- Going back to an external Excel file template
When a report is created, the InfoAsset Manager data is exported to Excel in a standard format. The best way to see this is to create a simple report and view the results. You can set up the template to carry out whatever analysis is required on this data.
Creating a new Custom Report
A new custom report can be created by using the database tools to copy an existing custom report and rename it.
To create a report from scratch an Excel file is required to base it on. A simple example is included in the InfoAsset Manager installation
- Create a Custom Report.
The new report is displayed in the Explorer window. In this window:
- Open the new Custom Report. The Custom Report dialog is displayed.
- In this dialog, you can:
- Select the Excel template to be associated with the custom report
- Select the location to which the generated report is to be saved
- Specify a filename for the report
- Open the associated template for editing and save it to the database
- Click Save.
- Click
to close the dialog.
Editing an existing Custom Report
- Open the relevant Custom Report. The Custom Report dialog is displayed. In this dialog:
- Click Open to open the underlying Excel template file for editing. A temporary file is created on the computer for this purpose.
- After editing, click Save to save it to the database.
- Click
to close the dialog.
Generating Custom Reports
Once a custom report has been set up it is very easy to use:
- Drag the custom report from the Explorer Window and drop it on the network. This displays the Data Source dialog.
- Choose the data source type for the report. Reporting can be carried out on:
- The entire network
- The current selection
- A zone or zone category
- If you selected the zone or zone category option you now need to select the zone or category name from the Data Source dropdown list.
- Click OK to continue. The report will be saved in accordance with the options selected in the
Custom Report dialog.
InfoAsset Manager then opens the report file in Excel.