[SOLVED] Querying the system for custom reports

susannah

Expert

posted

as darin says,
its not easy
but that's what we call fun.... so...
If you read the /ibi/WebFOCUS76/basedir directory,
and read each of the .htm files listed there,
you can search for character strings like this:


[*]<A HREF='e279jal/check_sec_ufos.fex' MRFLAG='suffix,node=EDASERVE,appname=baseapp,createdon=1231886628902,
createdby=Susannah+Jones+%28joness16%
29,shared,myreport,rassist,roname=mrv/compiled_security_ufos.fex,lastmodby=Jane+Doe+%28e279jal%29'>MY_FEX_NAME</A>

Reading these files with a master that has, say, a single record really wide size,
and parsing thru it...
You see how this line says ,shared,
which means this MyReport is a shared one.

This user doesn't have any custom reports, but if you go and create a shared and a custom for one of your users, then look at his/er username.htm file in the basedir, you'll find a wealth of info.

In Focus since 1979///7706m/5 ;wintel 2008/64;OAM security; Oracle db, ///MRE/BID

Posts: 3811 | Location: Manhattan | Registered: October 28, 2003

Ignored post by susannah posted

Guru

posted

Thanks Darin.

I found the post you are referring to at:

https://forums.informationbuilders.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/...1057331/m/7391015861

I will try to work with that. I appreciate the tip.

Release: WebFOCUS 7.6.8
OS: Windows
Output formats: HTML, PDF, Excel, csv

Posts: 256 | Registered: July 21, 2008

Ignored post by ChannyS posted

Guru

posted

Susannah/Darin,

Thanks for your ideas. With your help and the earlier posts from Francis and hammo1j I am able to find the list of saved reports (and I guess any other types that I would end up needing) for a user (whose file name I hard coded into the Master file). Now the fun really begins... This was just the first task. We would like to have a cleanup sort of system where we scan the user's saved reports and delete them automatically if they haven't been accessed for a given period of time. On to the next part of the fun...

Release: WebFOCUS 7.6.8
OS: Windows
Output formats: HTML, PDF, Excel, csv

Posts: 256 | Registered: July 21, 2008

Ignored post by ChannyS posted

Virtuoso

posted

Yeah, Good Luck on that one. I don't know if there is a way to automate that.

Regards,

Darin

Posts: 2298 | Location: Salt Lake City, Utah | Registered: February 02, 2007

Ignored post by Darin Lee posted

Guru

posted

Well now I'm able to get the list of custom reports. I am thinking that we can check some audit logs to see when these reports were last run. I'm hoping that'll work.

Release: WebFOCUS 7.6.8
OS: Windows
Output formats: HTML, PDF, Excel, csv

Posts: 256 | Registered: July 21, 2008

Ignored post by ChannyS posted

Virtuoso

posted

I meant the "Delete them automatically" part.

The only way I see that working is some sort of utility that can parse the user.htm file, deleting the references to those reports. There is no other way of deleting them except for the user to manually delete them. Maybe send a report telling them they have the following unused programs that need to be reviewed to see if they are still necessary and to delete them if not.

Next issue is how to get the information about when they were last run. That information is not available unless you have Resource Analyzer running. The only thing that know whether a fex has been run is the WF server, which does not keep a long-term record of those stats without the aforementioned tool or some special coding that gets run whenever a fex is executed and writes to a DB.

In our world, if it doesn't bother users to have obsolete programs in their "My Reports", it doesn't bother us. Additional resource required is minimal in the big picture.

Regards,

Darin

Posts: 2298 | Location: Salt Lake City, Utah | Registered: February 02, 2007

Ignored post by Darin Lee posted

Guru

posted

Business requirement...

Are you saying there is no MR API to delete a "My Report" - in which case, if we delete it automatically, things might go haywire (like the user's .htm file would be out of sync etc.)

Yes, we probably are writing our own code to figure out last accessed time. We do have RA but I'm worried that might affect our performance to use it all the time.

Release: WebFOCUS 7.6.8
OS: Windows
Output formats: HTML, PDF, Excel, csv

Posts: 256 | Registered: July 21, 2008

Ignored post by ChannyS posted

Virtuoso

posted

Not that I know of but I don't have that good of a grip on all the functionality that is available via the APIs. Someone correct me if that is not correct.

Regards,

Darin

Posts: 2298 | Location: Salt Lake City, Utah | Registered: February 02, 2007

Ignored post by Darin Lee posted

Virtuoso

posted

As a further suggestion, I would keep your users integrally involved in the decision as to what the "given period of time" for inactivity is. In a previous life in finance/accounting, there were some programs that I only used once every one or two years, but if someone had deleted them automatically without my knowledge or decision, I would have hit the roof! (and probably a couple of IT people as well!)

Regards,

Darin

Posts: 2298 | Location: Salt Lake City, Utah | Registered: February 02, 2007

Ignored post by Darin Lee posted