Archive Reports

ReportCenter includes a special user account named archive that you can use to save an archival copy of reports as you view them and also create a list of reports that will be automatically archived once every day. Each archived report is a complete set of files as would be served to your web browser if you were viewing the report in real time. If you use the archive user account to create a Favorite Reports list then each report listed in the favorites list for the archive user will be run and saved to disk once every day.

All of the required graphics, including any charts that are in the original report, are saved to a special folder on the ReportCenter Report Server hard drive for later retrieval. See File Locations below for details on the path to archived files. You can use the file sharing methods available in Microsoft Windows to allow access to your archived files from locally-networked computers, for example you could create a share volume that references the path C:\ReportCenter\archive\ in a typical ReportCenter installation.

Immediate Archive

To instantly archive any report:

1. Log in to the ReportCenter Report Server web interface using the user name archive which has a default password of archive.
2. Click the Reports tab in the navigation bar.
3. Use the Report Selector to create a report.
4. While viewing the report, click the save to disk icon  that appears to the right of the Report Selector.
5. A dialog box asks you to choose PDF or HTML format for the saved report.
   
   Select a radio button, then click Archive.
6. See File Locations below for information on where the archived files are saved.

Schedule Archives

You can also add reports to the Favorites list for this user. For every report listed in the Favorites list for the archive user, a copy of that report is created and automatically saved once every day. To schedule a report to be automatically archived once every day perform the following steps:

1. Use a web browser to log in to the ReportCenter Report Server using the user name archive. The default password for the archive account is archive.
2. Click the Reports tab in the black navigation bar.
3. Use the Report Selector bar to create an instance of the report you want to be archived daily.
4. While viewing the report instance click the yellow star icon to the right of the Report Selector bar. The report will be added to the Favorites list for the archive account.
5. If desired, return to step 2, create another report, and use the star icon while viewing that report to add it to the Favorites list for the archive user.
6. See File Locations below for information on where the archived files are saved.

   All reports listed in the favorites list for the archive user are automatically run and saved once every day.

File Locations

The archived files you schedule or create on demand using the archive user account are saved in a set of directories named for their frequency and the date they represent. These directories are all contained within a directory named archive under the ReportCenter home directory. For example, if you use the archive account to create a report for yesterday on Monday April 19th, 2004 and you have installed ReportCenter in C:\ReportCenter (default), then the report you created will be in a directory C:\ReportCenter\archive\daily\sunday april 18 2004\

Modify Archive File Path

You can modify the path where archived reports will be saved by editing the value for the property server.report. archive.path in the ReportCenter configuration file properties.prf. The default for this property is
server.report. archive.path= .\\archive\\%hours%\\%period%\\%date%\\%title%.html

The table below describes the substitution strings you can use to modify the path in which archived reports are saved. You can also put in literal text like drive letters and folders.

Element	Usage
.	The root ReportCenter directory,usually ‘c:\ReportCenter’
%element%	The name of group, device or component,‘Network’
%category%	The report category,‘Device’, ‘Application’ or ‘Host’
%report%	The report type or name,‘Summary’ or ‘Top 10’
%period%	The report period. ‘Daily’, ‘Weekly’, etc.
%date%	The report date,‘Friday, June 18, 2004’
%hours%	The name of the report hours,‘Business Hours’
%title%	The report title, ‘Daily Top Talkers Report for Network’

See ReportCenter Properties File for more information on modifying the file properties.prf.

Notes

Keep these details in mind when working with the archive user account:

• If you change the name of the archive user account then archives will no longer be saved, however you can change the password for the account, see Modify User.
• Only the user account named archive can be used to archive reports.
• When you log in to the Report Server web interface using the archive user account you will be greeted as a Manager, this is because the archive user account has manager-level access to reports.
• You can not directly access the archived reports through the ReportCenter user interfaces, you must have file-level access to the ReportCenter Server directory \ReportCenter\archive\ to be able to access these files. Consider using Windows File Sharing (NetBIOS) to share the \ReportCenter\archive\ directory as a read only share if you want users to be able to access these files at will.
• Archive files accumulate and are never automatically deleted by ReportCenter. Left to accumulate indefinitely they will consume all of the free disk space on their hard drive partition causing ReportCenter to fail. Consider a strategy to move archived reports to long term storage on a regular basis in order to prevent filling your hard drive inadvertently.