Building Custom Reports

You can build your own reports with data from the IBM Security report services database by using your own reporting tool or Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services.

Requirements and Recommendations

In order to build your own reports or customize existing reports, you also need to have the SSRS Report Builder installed where you have SSRS installed.

Known Limitations and Recommendations

  • Use the same domain where Microsoft SSRS is installed. If you try to use SSRS in a domain that is different from the domain where SSRS is installed, you may have some difficulty accessing reports. For example, if your computer runs in the acme.com domain and you have SSRS installed in a test domain of wiley.coyote.com, you may run into issues accessing the reports.
  • If you’re accessing SSRS from a different domain, make sure that you enter your credentials and save them.
  • When you log in to SSRS, make sure that the user you’re logging in as has at least the system user role, and at least read access to the folder (according to the folder settings in SSRS).

An Overview of Report Building Tasks

Microsoft documentation contains specific instructions for how to create custom reports using SSRS Report Builder. Included here is the overall process; please consult Microsoft SSRS Report Builder documentation for details.

For example, here’s a link to Microsoft information on using SQL Server Reporting Services 2012: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh338693.aspx.

An overview of how to build custom reports using SSRS and IBM Security report services data:

  1. Open Internet Explorer to the deployed reports URL.

    • Make sure that you have the correct access permissions in SSRS for building reports. For details, see Granting Access in SSRS to Reports.
    • It’s recommended that you log in to the deployed reports URL as a user with Report Building permissions, but not database administrator permissions. If you log in as a user with access to all tables in the reporting database, you may see tables that you cannot use in custom reports. IBM Security exposes the views for you to use in your custom reports.

  2. Open Microsoft SQL Server Report Builder, and create the dataset that connects you to the reporting data source.

    (The dataset is the set of data retrieved from the database, and the data source is the connection information for the database.)

  3. Create a new report that’s based on the data set that you just created.

  4. Design a query using the provided views.

  5. Run the report to make sure that you get data in the report.

  6. Edit the report as desired.

  7. Save the report.

    Microsoft SSRS saves the report as a .RDL file.

  8. Publish the report by publishing the RDL file.

Migrating Custom Reports from SQL Server Express

If you create custom reports using the included version of SQL Server 2008 R2 Express edition, you can migrate those custom reports over to a production SQL Server. You’ll need to download each custom report and then re-upload them into the production system.

To download your custom reports from SQL Server Express:

  1. Create a temporary folder on your local computer.

    You’ll use this folder to store your downloaded custom reports temporarily.

  2. Open IBM Security Report Services in Internet Explorer.

  3. Navigate to the Custom Reports folder.

  4. Select a report and select Download from the report’s action menu.

  5. Save the downloaded report in the temporary folder that you already created.

    Repeat this process for each report.

  6. Close Internet Explorer.

To upload your custom reports to your production instance of SQL Server:

  1. Run the IBM Security Report Services Configuration wizard.
  2. In the configuration wizard, choose the production SQL Server instance where you want to deploy the reports, then close the wizard.
  3. Open IBM Security Report Services in Internet Explorer.
  4. Navigate to the Custom Reports folder.

  5. For each report:

    1. Click Upload File and select the custom report that you downloaded from your other instance.
    2. After the report is uploaded, select the report and click Manage.
    3. Click the Data Sources tab.
    4. Select A shared data source and click Browse.
    5. In the folder listing, expand the Centrify Report Services folder.
    6. Select ReportDataSource and click OK.
    7. In the Data Sources page, click Apply.

You can now open the custom report successfully using data in your production SQL Server instance.