Crystal Reports How to determine frequency of RUNS

We run all our reports from the scheduler and use the CREATED or LASTMODIFIED columns in the ERS_REPORTS table for the last run time. There is also the CREATED and LASTACCESSED columns from the ERS_PUBLICATIONS table if you want details at the publication key level. For the user you might try the OWNER or PUBLISHER columns from the ERS_REPORTS table. You may need to calculate frequency based on the query results.

I looked at the ERS_PUBLICATIONS Table and it is empty, but the ERS_PUBLICATIONS2 tables has records, but for only 1 REPORTID. This REPORTID has multiple records in this table, with the most recent LASTACCESSED being the current date. The ERS_REPORTS has a STARTED AND FINISHED field, but none of these are current dates. Is there some sort of logging that is not turned on?

Im not sure STARTED, FINISHED, OWNER or PUBLISHER is accurate if you have users running reports OnDemand or even viewing historical instances. These will only be specific to the instance when it was created. For the original report the first 2 values would probably not be populated. The only way to truly have report usage auditing is to write your own usage application that collects this request info based on the Report Events.

Supposedly LBI 10 has report usage audit statistics though I havent used it yet so I cant speak to its usefulness.

Last question. When you say Events, are you talking about Windows logged events? We are aware of a Lawson log file that logs this information, but it has to be parsed out for it to be truely effective. Thanks for all your help.

Layne,

You never mentioned what version of LBI, and more specifically Reporting Services, you are on.

The events I refer to are noted in detail in the RS user guide. its quite extensive so I wont go too much into detail, take a look and if I can help clarify anything let me know. Essentially they are a way for you to interject your own server-side code to capture details about the usage of your reports or to create your own custom parameter pages.

As Im sure youre finding out, this is not a simplistic solution. Ive never explored parsing the log files to get this information but my suspicion would be that it will only tell you who and when the report was requested and not give a clear indication of run-time or if the report was even completed successfully.

If this is a big priority for your organization you may want to have a look at LBI 10 and see if it provides the desired features. As far as I know there is no additional cost associated to this upgrade aside from professional services if you choose to use them.

I plan on upgrading my system to 10 next week and will report back on the completeness of the report auditing features.

hth,
Matt

Sorry about that, we are on version 9, but our Lawson Administrator has a good handle on some upgrades he wants to do. Sounds like we could use the extra capabilities of the new version. We will watch for additional posts to see how yours turns out. Thanks so much!!!!