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UFIL516: Reporting 201

John Verbosky, Learning Development

Jeffrey J Hoover, Senior Trainer

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Agenda

• Determining Criteria

• Leveraging Existing Resources

• Scavenging Code

• Accessing the K1000 Database

• Developing a Report Query

• Formatting Output with Functions

• Building a K1000 SQL Report

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Determining Criteria

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Asking the Right Questions

What

– Devices, Software, Assets, Patching, Service Desk tickets, etc.

– All or a subset?

Who

– Device users, Service Desk owners/submitters, etc.

– All, a subset or none?

When

– Current, historical or a fixed period?

How

– Should output be sorted or grouped?

– Detailed or summary results?

– Single or multiple reports?

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Exercise 1: Ask the Right Questions

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Leveraging Existing Resources

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Report Wizard – Yes or No?

Report Wizard

Creation is

straightforward

Filter values need

determined

Does a pre-existing

report exist? YAY!

Need to scavenge or

tweak a related query

No Report Wizard

Browse the K1000

database

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Exercise 2: Determine if the Report Wizard Can Be Used

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Scavenging Code

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Scavenging Code

K1000 Wizard Reports

Build baseline reports

Use Edit SQL for code

ITNinja

Search on “topic + report”

K1000 Canned Reports

Ordered by Category

Your Own Code

By module

By filter

By presentation

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Exercise 3: Scavenge Code

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Accessing the K1000 Database

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Accessing the K1000 Database

Use a Query Test Environment

– Badly written queries can be stopped or killed

K1000 Security Settings

– The Enable database access option needs to be enabled

– This change requires a reboot of the K1000

– Recommend changing the default password

Several Options Available

– Toad for MySQL

– MySQL Workbench

– FlySpeed SQL Query

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Exercise 4: Connect Toad for MySQL to the K1000

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Developing a Report Query

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Developing a Report Query

SELECT what information?

• Adjust column names and add more columns from selected tables.

FROM which tables?

• Include additional tables using JOIN statements.

• (INNER) and LEFT joins include different information.

WHERE should information be limited?

• Adjust and add filter criteria to limit returned results.

GROUP BY and ORDER BY which information?

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Exercise 5: Start Simple

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Formatting Output with Functions

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Format Output with FunctionsFormatting Output

Single Functions Considerations Aggregate Functions

• Operate on a single value

• Can be nested

• Some functions and operators only

work with certain data types

• Common K1000 simple functions

Date/Time: DATE_FORMAT,

TIME_TO_SEC, SEC_TO_TIME,

DATE_ADD

String Manipulation: CONCAT,

SUBSTRING, TRIM

• When nesting > inside to outside

• Data types

• GROUP BY requires aggregate

functions

• Operate on sets of values

• Can be nested with single functions

• Common K1000 aggregate functions:

COUNT

SUM

GROUP_CONCAT

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Exercise 6: GROUP BY and Aggregate Functions

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Building a K1000 SQL Report

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Building a K1000 SQL Report

Leave as the last step

If a report fails to run, check the related logs

– K1000 > Settings > Logs > Reporting Log

– K1000 > Settings > Logs > Reporting Errors

If a K1000 SQL Report is taking a long time to appear…

– Wait

– Try another browser

– Reboot the K1000 via the UI

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Exercise 7: Build a K1000 SQL Report

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Closing Tips

1

Duplicate/Missing Data?

Review tables and JOIN

criteria

Use DISTINCT as needed

2

Stuck? Research.

MySQL + what you are

trying to do

ITNinja

3

Document. Everything.

Keep earlier revisions

Keep notes or comment

code on success and

failure

4

Start simple

Avoid subqueries unless

absolutely necessary

5

Filter early

Test with a single

expected record

6

Use LIMIT

Test viability of large

reports

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Thank you.

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