System Center Configuration Manager 2007 : Reporting Configuration (part 1) - Configuring the Reporting Point for Classic Reporting, SRS Reporting

When choosing a site to host either classic or SRS reporting, keep in mind that data flows up the ConfigMgr hierarchy and management flows down the hierarchy. This means that all data in your hierarchy is available at the central site, including discovery data, client inventory, status messages, and metering data. The central site is, therefore, the most useful location when reporting on your ConfigMgr environment. If you use child primary sites for administration, you may decide to enable reporting at these sites as well. Because management objects such as packages, advertisements, and task sequences created at child sites are not available for reporting at higher levels of the hierarchy, you must run those reports that track local management operations at the child sites.

To provide reporting capability on your site, you must first configure the appropriate site systems. 

• For classic reporting, you need to configure the Reporting Point site system role.

• For SRS reporting, you need to configure the Reporting Services Point site system role.

The next two sections discuss these configurations. You need to add any users that need to view reports and are not local administrators on the reporting point server to the Reporting Users local group on the reporting point server, and ensure users have either class or instance rights to view the appropriate reports. 

1. Configuring the Reporting Point for Classic Reporting

The reporting point site system computer must have IIS and Active Server Pages (ASP) installed and enabled. To enable rendering graphs in reports, install Microsoft Office Web Components (Microsoft Office 2000 SP 2, Office XP, or Office 2003) on your reporting point server.

Here are the options you can specify when you configure a reporting point role:

• The report folder— ConfigMgr creates a folder with the specified name under the default website. The default name for the report folder is SMSReporting_<Site Code>. In Figure 1, the folder used for classic reporting is SMSReporting_DAL on the SCCMUnleashed Dallas site server.

  Figure 1. The Reporting Point configuration page with the default options displayed

  

• Transfer protocol— You can specify whether to use Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) or Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTPS), and specify the port on which the reporting point should listen.

Based on the options you specify, ConfigMgr constructs and displays the reporting Uniform Resource Locator (URL). Figure 18.3 displays the options for configuring a reporting point.

2. Configuring the Reporting Services Point for SRS Reporting

You can assign the Reporting Services Point site system role to the site server or a remote server. For performance reasons, you generally want to move this role off the site server. The major prerequisites for the Reporting Services Point site system role include the following:

• The computer holding this role must have Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and its Reporting Services component installed. You must also configure the default report server and report manager virtual directories, the Windows service and web service identities, and the report server database.

  For information about installing and configuring SQL Reporting Services, visit the SQL Reporting Services website at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=111840.

  Be sure to test for a successful installation of SRS prior to configuring the reporting services point. You can do this by browsing to both http://localhost/reports and http://localhost/ReportServer from the SRS server.

  • http://localhost/reports should display the SQL Server Reporting Services home page, including a toolbar for managing reports.

  • http://localhost/ReportServer should display a page with the SRS installation date and version information.

• The computer containing the reporting services point must have IIS 6.0 installed.

• Your site must be running ConfigMgr 2007 R2 before you configure a reporting services point.

The only option to specify when creating the reporting services point is the report folder name. The default name for the report folder is ConfigMgr_<Site Code>. ConfigMgr creates the report folder under the ReportServer website on the SRS website. After creating the reporting services point, you need to configure several SRS options in the ConfigMgr console. To configure Reporting Services options, expand the Configuration Manager console tree to System Center Configuration Manager -> Site Database -> Computer Management -> Reporting -> Reporting Services. Right-click your reporting services point server, and choose Properties. The General tab displays the location, status, size, and a summary of the objects the reporting services point contains. You can use the remaining tabs to configure SRS options as follows:

• The Data Source Settings tab settings specify the database that supplies data to your reports. This generally is your site database or a replica of the site database. Figure 2 displays the Data Source Settings tab. In this figure, the Server name is Bluebonnet and the Database name is SMS_CEN.

  Figure 2. The Reporting Services Properties page Data Source Settings tab

  

• The Data Source Authentication tab settings specify the credentials used to access the data source.

  Note: Supported Options for ConfigMgr R2

  Although the Data Source Authentication shows the option Credentials supplied by the user running the report, ConfigMgr 2007 R2 does not actually support this option.

  
  

  Here are the supported options for data source authentication:

  • Credentials stored securely in the report server— This option allows you to specify credentials for either a Windows or SQL Server user account, which is stored in encrypted form in the SRS report server database and used to authenticate to the data source. For more information about authentication in SQL Server, refer to the SQL Server 2005 product documentation available online at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms130214.aspx. You generally choose this option if you plan to schedule unattended reports to support the SRS subscription feature.

  • Windows Integrated Security— SRS uses the credentials of the user executing the report to authenticate to the data source.

  • Credentials are not required— You can select this option if you do not need to restrict access to the reporting data.

  Figure 3 shows the Data Source Authentication tab configured to store Windows account credentials in the report server database and allow the use of delegation. Delegation enables the server to use the credentials to connect to additional systems if required.

  Figure 3. The Reporting Services Properties page Data Source Authentication tab