Netsweeper Reporter Manual

Transcription

1 Netsweeper Reporter Manual Version

2 Reporter Manual Netsweeper Inc. All rights reserved. Netsweeper Inc. 104 Dawson Road, Guelph, Ontario, N1H 1A7, Canada Phone: Fax: Marlowes Hemel Hempstead Herts HP1 1LD, UK Phone: No. 23/35 18th Ave. Ashok Nagar, Chennai India Phone: Fax: Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this manual. However, Netsweeper Inc. makes no warranties with respect to this documentation and disclaims any implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Netsweeper Inc. shall not be liable for any error or for incidental or consequential damages in connection with the furnishing, performance, or use of this manual or the examples herein. The information in this documentation is subject to change without notice. Netsweeper and Netsweeper Inc. are trademarks or registered trademarks of Netsweeper Incorporated in Canada and/or in other countries. Other product names mentioned in this manual may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies and are the sole property of their respective manufacturers. Netsweeper Reporter Page ii

3 Preface This document is for Netsweeper Server administrators who wish to use the Netsweeper Reporter to receive customized reports on Internet usage within their network. The Reporter s administration interface, called the Webadmin, has several different themes available and each theme changes the appearance of the menus, buttons, and other visual elements. This document uses examples with images obtained from a real Netsweeper deployment. All on-screen images shown in this document use the Netsweeper Business theme. Administrators using the Reporter should be aware of and adhere to local privacy laws. Organizations that use logging and reporting should have and make known an Acceptable Use Policy that states that users Internet activity will be filtered and recorded. Netsweeper Reporter Page iii

4 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION... 3 GETTING STARTED... 3 Logging in to the Webadmin... 3 Accessing the Reports Menu... 3 Sending a Test ABOUT THE REPORTER... 3 Reporting Components... 3 File Formats for Reports... 3 Hard Disk Space Used By the Reporter... 3 Delivery of Reports... 3 Administrator Privileges... 3 Defining Requests, Pages, and Files... 3 Defining Web Pages and Websites... 3 CHOOSING A REPORT TYPE... 3 When to Use Quick Reporting... 3 When to Use the Report Wizard... 3 QUICK REPORTING... 3 ABOUT QUICK REPORTS... 3 QUICK REPORT DESCRIPTIONS... 3 Internet Request Activity... 3 Category Activity... 3 Websites... 3 Request Log... 3 USING QUICK REPORTS... 3 Starting Quick Reports... 3 Viewing Quick Reports Over the Web... 3 Stopping Quick Reports... 3 USING QUICK DEMAND REPORTS... 3 Creating a Quick Demand Report... 3 Viewing a Quick Demand Report Over the Web... 3 Sending a Quick Demand Report By Deleting a Quick Demand Report... 3 USING QUICK SEARCH... 3 Quick Search Filter Descriptions... 3 Performing a Quick Search... 3 Netsweeper Reporter Page iv

5 Viewing Your Quick Search Results... 3 Sending Your Quick Search Results By Deleting Your Quick Search Results... 3 CUSTOM REPORTING WITH THE REPORT WIZARD... 3 ABOUT THE REPORT WIZARD... 3 CUSTOM REPORT DESCRIPTIONS... 3 Demand Reports... 3 Scheduled Reports... 3 Continuous Reports... 3 CREATING A DEMAND REPORT... 3 Starting the Report Wizard... 3 Applying Report Filters... 3 Adding Summary Groups... 3 Adding a Detail Group... 3 Finishing the Report... 3 CREATING A SCHEDULED REPORT... 3 Starting the Report Wizard... 3 Applying Report Filters... 3 Adding Summary Groups... 3 Adding a Detail Group... 3 Finishing the Report... 3 CREATING A CONTINUOUS REPORT... 3 Starting the Report Wizard... 3 Applying Report Filters... 3 Adding Summary Groups... 3 Finishing the Report... 3 ADDITIONAL REPORT OPTIONS... 3 Viewing a Report... 3 Sending a Report by Editing a Report... 3 Deleting a Report... 3 ACCESSING THE REQUEST LOG... 3 ADVANCED FEATURES OF THE REPORT WIZARD... 3 USING REPORT FILTERS... 3 Simple Report Filters... 3 Advanced Report Filters... 3 USING REPORT GROUPS... 3 Choosing Summary Groups... 3 Choosing Detail Groups... 3 SORTING YOUR REPORT... 3 Column Sorting... 3 Row Sorting... 3 USING GRAPHS AND TABLES... 3 Detail Group Options... 3 Netsweeper Reporter Page v

6 Summary Group Graph Options... 3 Data Tables... 3 Pie Graphs D Bar Graphs D Bar Graphs... 3 Line Graphs... 3 USING OPTIONS... 3 REPORTER SETTINGS... 3 SETTING REPORT RESTRICTIONS... 3 Allowing or Hiding Demand, Scheduled, and Continuous Reports... 3 Setting Hard Disk Restrictions... 3 Customizing Report s... 3 DEFINING A PAGE WITH HTML EXTENSIONS... 3 Default HTML Extensions List... 3 Editing the HTML Extensions List... 3 ALLOWING AND HIDING QUICK REPORTS... 3 INDEX... 3 Netsweeper Reporter Page vi

7 1 Introduction The Reporter s main role is to produce easily understood reports that allow you to review the Internet usage on your network. Whether you re looking for general statistics on your network s traffic or for information about specific requests, websites, or users, use the Reporter to find the data you re looking for. This chapter explains how the reporting process works, the other Netsweeper components involved, and the different types of reports that the Reporter can create. It also provides some recommendations for choosing reports and explains the key concepts that should be understood to help you take full advantage of the Reporter s features. Introduction Page 1

8 Getting Started The Netsweeper Reporter is managed using a web-based administration interface called the Webadmin. This section describes how to log in to the Webadmin, how the menu system works, where the Reports menu is located, and how to send a test . Netsweeper strongly recommends that you send a test before creating any reports to confirm that you can properly receive ed reports from the Netsweeper Reporter. Logging in to the Webadmin Before you can log in to the Webadmin, you must have the following information: The Webadmin URL for your Policy Server Your User ID Your password Contact your Netsweeper administrator if you do not know your Webadmin URL or do not have an account for the Webadmin. Once you have the URL, your User ID, and your password, do the following to log into the Webadmin: 1. Open your Webadmin URL in a browser. 2. Enter your User ID and your password. 3. Select Login. Once you are logged in, you can begin creating, viewing, and modifying reports. Note Many of the example images in this document were obtained using the Netsweeper Business theme. If you use a different theme in your Webadmin, your screen will look different than the examples. However, once you know how to access the main menu, the procedures explained in this document are the same, regardless of the theme you are using. Figure 1: Log in to the Webadmin Introduction Page 2

9 Accessing the Reports Menu The reports menu options are available from the main menu and may be located under the Reports heading, depending on the theme you are using (some themes don't display headings). The following is an example of the report options, shown in the Netsweeper Business theme: Figure 2: Reports Menu The Report Wizard option is used to create a new custom report. You can generate a new Demand Report, a Scheduled Report, or a Continuous Report using the Report Wizard. Demand Reports allows you to view, edit, and delete existing Demand Reports and create Quick Demand Reports. Scheduled Reports allows you to view, edit, and delete existing Schedule Reports. Continuous Reports allows you to view, edit, and delete existing Continuous Reports. Quick Reports allow you to select or view some of the predefined reports already available on your Policy Server. This is the simplest and fastest way of creating a report. Reporter Manager provides statistics and tools to manage your Scheduled Reports and your Reporter s performance. See Choosing a Report Type on page 3 for more on the different types of reports available. Sending a Test The most common way to access your reports is to have them ed directly to you by the Reporter. Before creating your first report, it is a good idea to send a test to confirm that you can receive your reports. This step confirms that the Netsweeper Servers, your mail server, and client are properly configured. To send a test , do the following: 1. Select Quick Reports from the main menu. 2. Enter the address you want to test in the Reports To: field. 3. Click Save. 4. Click Test. Introduction Page 3

10 Within a few minutes, you should receive a response at the address you provided. If you do not receive an , please check to make sure your client is not filtering s from your Netsweeper Server as spam or junk mail. If this does not resolve the problem, contact your Netsweeper administrator or network administrator to check your mail server and Netsweeper Policy Server. Figure 3: Send a Test Introduction Page 4

11 About the Reporter Every Internet request that passes through the Netsweeper system is recorded in the Request Log. However, when you re dealing with hundreds, thousands, or even millions of requests per second, trying to monitor activity by searching through each entry in the log quickly becomes unmanageable. Instead, the Reporter refines the raw data for you. That is, it filters out the information you don t want and displays the relevant information in easy-to-understand graphs, tables, and charts. These reports are highly customizable and don t require any knowledge of query languages. The Reporter is managed using the same web based interface used to manage user policies and other system settings. This interface is called the Webadmin. To access the Webadmin, you need an administrator (Admin) or system operator (Sysop) account and password. There is also a special, Master Admin account that has exclusive access to several system settings that affect the Reporter and its operation. For more information, see Reporter Settings on page 3. Reporting Components There are four main components involved in Netsweeper s reporting service: The Policy Server The Logger The Web Server The Reporter The Policy Server is involved in the categorization of websites, enforcement of user policies, and logging of requests. When the Policy Server receives a request for a website, it typically decides whether the request should be allowed or denied based on two main factors: the category (or categories, since a website can be assigned to more than one category) assigned to the website and the acceptable use policy of the user that made the request. Policies are always stored locally on the Policy Server, while category assignments may be stored locally or retrieved from the Netsweeper Categorization Service. Note Only websites are assigned to categories. Requests to other Internet services, such as , file sharing, and instant messaging, are either allowed or denied based on the protocol itself and the user s acceptable use policy. Once the Policy Server has made an allow or deny decision, it instructs the filter device to carry out the decision. Once this is done, the Policy Server begins the logging process. It connects to Introduction Page 5

12 the Logger and sends the URI (Uniform Resource Identifier), the Group, the Client name that the user belongs to, the category assigned to the request, and the allow or deny ruling. When an administrator creates a report, the Reporter accesses the logs in the log files, extracts the data you want, and compiles the data into easy-to-read tables, graphs, and charts. Depending on the volume of traffic on your network, the Netsweeper Server components may be located on a single hardware server or separated onto multiple servers. However, the Reporter and Logger components are typically located together on a single hardware server. Management of the components is done from a central web-based administration interface called the Webadmin, which resides on the Policy Server. In deployments with more than one Policy Server, the Webadmin is accessed on the master Policy Server and changes are updated on all other Policy Servers. File Formats for Reports Quick Reports are available only as HTML files, but reports created with the Report Wizard are available as HTML, PDF, CSV, and plain text files. CSV (Comma-Separated Values) files can be imported and read by most third party reporting tools, such as Microsoft Excel and Crystal Reports. PDF reports can also contain charts, graphs, tables and other graphical elements to help interpret the data. These charts and graphs are not available in CSV or plain text reports. Hard Disk Space Used By the Reporter Logs and reports are not stored indefinitely and are not stored for any predefined time period. To optimize hard disk space usage, older log entries and reports are removed to create space for new data when the storage limit on the hard drive is reached. The length of time that data is stored depends on the amount of hard disk space available and the amount allocated for logs and reports by the Master Admin. See Setting Hard Disk Restrictions on page 3 for more on setting the hard disk space limit for reports. Measures should be taken to save and backup old logs and reports if you need access to them at a later date. Delivery of Reports You can view reports over the web through the Webadmin or as s sent directly to you. See Viewing a Report on page 3 for more on accessing Reports over the Webadmin. ed reports can be sent in one of two ways. Either the report is sent with the as an attachment or the contains web links for you to download the report directly off the Server. Introduction Page 6

13 While creating a custom report (with the Report Wizard), you can specify special conditions on whether an should be sent or not and what the should include. See Sending a Report by on page 3 for more information. Administrator Privileges The level of access you have to the Reporter depends on your Webadmin account. There are four types of accounts available on the Webadmin: Master Admin an account for the Netsweeper master administrator. Admin regular administrator accounts. Sysop system operator (or assistant administrator) accounts User end-user accounts. The Master Admin account is a special, built-in account designed for the head Netsweeper Server administrator. Typically, this is the person in charge of maintaining the server and managing the accounts of other administrators. This account has access to all the features that a regular administrator has, plus a few extra system settings. See Reporter Settings on page 3 for more on the Reporter settings available to the Master Admin account. Admin accounts are for regular administrators who manage one or more groups of users. These accounts have access to all of the Reporter s features and can report on all users but cannot access any of the System Configuration settings, including the Reporter Settings. Sysop accounts are for administrators with limited permissions. The level of access that Sysops have on the system depends on the individual Sysop s permission settings. Sysops can only report on Groups and Clients assigned to their account. Sysop permissions can only be modified by an Admin or Master Admin. User accounts are not intended for administration and reporting using the Webadmin. They must be linked with a specific Group to access Quick Reports for their own Internet use this is generally the case with Client Filter accounts. User accounts cannot access any other Groups or Clients other than themselves and cannot create custom reports with the Report Wizard. In most Netsweeper deployments, User accounts are not used to access the Webadmin or the Reporter directly. Typically, you should be a Sysop, Admin, or Master Admin if you are creating reports using this document. The following charts outline the general privileges granted to each of the possible types of users. Note that the following table only includes tasks related to Reporting. There are many other differences between account types as they relate to other aspect of the Webadmin. Introduction Page 7

14 Task Master Admin Sysop User Admin Logging into the Admin Console Using Quick Reports O Using Quick Search O Using Quick Demand Reports O Using Demand Reports O Using Scheduled Reports O Using Continuous Reports O Using the Report Wizard O Viewing the log file Changing System Configuration settings = permission allowed O = optional permission Defining Requests, Pages, and Files There is a subtle difference between a request and a page that you should be aware of when using the Reporter and reading reports. An attempt to access any resource over the Internet is always considered a request, no matter what kind of resource it was. All requests are then divided into one of two groups: pages or files. Your Internet browser usually needs to make several requests to open a single web page. This is because a web page can be composed of many different resources, including images, cascading style sheets (css),.html files, and more. Your browser downloads each of these resources separately and assembles them together to form the resulting web page that you see. In order to distinguish between the number of requests and the actual number of web pages visited, the Reporter only counts certain types of resources as pages. To do so, the Reporter keeps a list of file extensions that should be classified as pages. This list includes common web page extensions, such as.html,.htm, and.php and many others. Any request that does not have a file extension in this list is classified as a file instead. Since denied web pages are never retrieved from the Internet, only the initial request can be logged. Thus, a denied website is only counted as one request and one page. On the other hand, an allowed web page may end up causing several requests, which means several requests are logged but only one page is logged. It is for this reason that using pages instead of requests can often provide a more accurate representation of your network's traffic. The Netsweeper Master Admin can edit the list of extensions that are classified as pages. See Defining a Page with HTML Extensions on page 3 for more if you are the Master Admin. Introduction Page 8

15 Defining Web Pages and Websites A website is a collection of web pages that share the same host and port. For example, there are many web pages (such as and at Netsweeper s website ( If you want a report on individual web pages, use the URI field. If you want a report based on entire websites, use the Host of URI field. Introduction Page 9

16 Choosing a Report Type There are two main types of reports available to administrators. The Quick Reporting tools are a set of prepared reports that are ready for you to use right away. The Report Wizard offers more flexibility, allowing you to create customized reports that show only the information you re looking for. When using the Reporter, the first step is deciding whether a Quick Reporting tool is sufficient or whether you need to use the Report Wizard. A common approach to reporting is to create Quick Reports and check them regularly to identify potential problems or unusual activity. If a problem is found, you can investigate further using the Report Wizard or the Quick Search tool. When to Use Quick Reporting Quick Reporting tools are the simplest way to schedule and receive regular Internet monitoring reports. Quick Reports The following is a list of some of the common information that Quick Reports are used to monitor, along with the recommended option: When do peak Internet usage times occur on my network? Try the Internet Request Activity report. When do denied requests tend to occur? Try Internet Request Activity. How much Internet traffic requests per minute) does my network handle during the lunch hour? Try Internet Request Activity. How many requests were made to the Job Search (or any other) category? Try Category Activity (all). How many web requests were denied because they were assigned to the Gambling (or any other) category? Try Category Activity (denied). What are the most frequently requested websites on my network? Try Top 10 Websites (all). What websites are most frequently blocked by the Netsweeper filter? Try Top 10 Websites (denied). I want to see the entire log of Internet requests. Try Request Log (all). I want to see all the requests that were denied. Try Request Log (denied). See Quick Report Descriptions on page 3 for more. Introduction Page 10

17 Quick Demand Reports Use Quick Demand Reports when you want to find any of the information shown in a Quick Report, but want the report to cover a very specific time period. For example, create a Top 10 Websites report for yesterday afternoon between 13:00-18:00 (1:00pm-6:00pm). Quick Search Quick Search is used to directly search for specific items in the Request Log. Similar to a web search engine, the Quick Search feature allows you to reduce the number of search results by entering one or more criteria that a record must satisfy to be included. You can use a date or IP address range, a specific Client or Policy Group name, a URL or Host name, the Denied Flag (which indicates whether the request was allowed or denied), and requests to specific categories as your search criteria. When to Use the Report Wizard In general, use the Report Wizard whenever you need specific information that is not found in any of the Quick Reports. Reports created with the Report Wizard can be sorted and displayed in virtually any combination of the following: By Group (group of users) By Client (user) By request (each URI processed) By file (each file requested) By page (one page of a website) By host (entire website) By pages denied By pages allowed By category By time or date range There are three different types of reports that you can create using the Report Wizard: Scheduled, Demand, and Continuous Reports. Use Scheduled Reports to monitor your users Internet access on a regular basis, such as at the end of the day or week. Use Demand reports to create a report at any time, which covers any time period in the logs. Continuous Reports show a frequently updated summary of the activity. Create the report once and check it again, whenever you want, for the latest information. Introduction Page 11

18 2 Quick Reporting To make quick reporting as flexible as possible, Netsweeper provides three different Quick Reporting tools: Quick Reports, Quick Demand Reports, and Quick Search. Quick Reports are a group of prepared reports that are available from the first time you log into the Webadmin. These reports include some of the most commonly used reports by Netsweeper s customers. Quick Reports are typically generated on a regular basis (daily, weekly, or monthly) so you can periodically review the Internet use on your network. Quick Demand Reports contain the same information and layout as Quick Reports but allow you to choose the specific period of time that the report covers starting as far back as the current logs are stored. Quick Search allows you to search the Request Log files for certain types of requests. Report filters allow you narrow down the search results by searching for only certain types of requests or certain users. Quick Reporting Page 12

19 About Quick Reports Quick Reports can be generated daily, weekly, or monthly and are usually generated at midnight at the end of the report period. Quick Demand Reports are generated once and can cover any time period. By default, there are five types of Quick Reports and Quick Demand Reports available to all users: Internet Request Activity Category Activity (allowed) Category Activity (denied) Top 10 Websites (allowed) Top 10 Websites (denied) However, depending on the settings applied by your Master Admin, you may not have access to all the Quick Reports listed above or you may have access to one or more additional reports: Category Activity (all) Top 10 Websites (all) Top 100 Websites (all) Top 100 Websites (allowed) Top 100 Websites (denied) Request Log (all) Request Log (denied) Request Log (allowed) If you are the Master Admin, see Allowing and Hiding Quick Reports on page 3 for more on adding or removing Quick Report options. Quick Reporting Page 13

20 Quick Report Descriptions Each Quick Report can be created daily, weekly, or monthly. You can select as many reports as you like, although the report size or available hard disk space to store reports may be limited by the Reporter Settings. Only the Master Admin account has access to these settings. Internet Request Activity This is a chart that shows the total number of requests, the requests that were allowed, and the requests that were denied. A request is any attempt to access the Internet, including attempts to check , send instant messages, download files through peer-to-peer networks, and access other Internet-based protocols; not just viewing websites. Figure 4: Internet Request Activity example report Quick Reporting Page 14

21 Category Activity These reports include a pie chart and table of the categories that were assigned to each website page requested. A page can be assigned to one or more categories so the total indicates all the categories that were assigned, not just the number of pages that were categorized. There are up to three Category Activity reports available on your Reporter: all, allowed, and denied. Using these reports you can include all pages, regardless of category (all); include only pages in allowed categories (allowed); or include only pages in denied categories (denied). Figure 5: Category Activity example report Quick Reporting Page 15

22 Websites These reports include a table of the top 10 (or top 100) most requested websites websites not in the top ten are grouped together under other. This report does not include non-http requests, such as or instant messaging. In total, there can be up to six Top Website reports available on your Reporter. There are also six different variations of this report: Top 10 Websites (all), Top 10 Websites (allowed), Top 10 Websites (denied), Top 100 Websites (all), Top 100 Websites (allowed), and Top 100 Websites (denied). Top Websites can be set to include all websites, regardless of whether they were allowed or denied (all); include allowed websites only (allowed); or include denied websites only (denied). This report lists the top websites, not the individual pages. A website is a collection of web pages that share the same host and port. For example, there are many web pages (such as and at Netsweeper s website ( The Total Pages column combines all requests to any of the pages at the site. Figure 6: Top 10 Websites (denied) example Quick Reporting Page 16

23 Request Log These Reports include a table that lists the Date, URI, Category, and Denied Flag for every Internet request. A request includes any attempt to access the Internet. This includes , instant messaging, file sharing, and any other Internet-based protocols not just websites. The Denied Flag indicates whether or not the request was allowed. On means the request was denied. Off means the request was allowed. There are up to three Request Log reports available on your Reporter: all, allowed, and denied. Figure 7: Request Log example report Quick Reporting Page 17

24 Using Quick Reports Once you decide which Quick Reports you want, you simply need to log in to the Webadmin and request them. Starting Quick Reports Each available report can be scheduled to run daily, weekly, or monthly. The first time you select a Quick Report, the report for the previous day, week, or month is automatically generated. The report may take some time to generate. You may need to refresh the page after a couple seconds before the report is accessible. Subsequent reports are created at midnight at the end of the report cycle, according the time settings of the Policy Server (not necessarily your local time settings). Once you are logged into the Webadmin, do the following to create one or more Quick Reports: 1. Select Quick Reports from the main menu. 2. Select the check box beside each Report you want to create. 3. If you want the reports sent to you by , enter your address in the Reports to: field. You can send the reports to multiple addresses by separating each address with a comma (,) and no spaces. 4. Select Save. A report for the most recent cycle is now automatically generated for you. If you entered an address, the report for the last report cycle will be sent shortly. For example, if your report is run daily, then you will receive a report for yesterday's activity. Figure 8: Create Quick Reports Empty reports (reports that have no data in them) may not be sent, depending on your server's settings. If you are the Master Admin, see Setting Report Restrictions on page 3 for more on these settings. Quick Reporting Page 18

25 Viewing Quick Reports Over the Web The Webadmin can be used to open reports using your web browser. To view a report, select Quick Reports from the main menu. Then select the name of the report to view the latest report or select More and choose a report date. Note If you just created the report, it may not have finished processing yet. Please wait a few seconds and then return to the Quick Reports screen and try again. Figure 9: More Quick Reports Stopping Quick Reports You can stop a Quick Report from being ed to you or from being generated altogether. In the first case the reports is still generated on a regular basis and is still accessible using the Webadmin. If you completely stop the report, it will no longer be accessible by or through the Webadmin. Stop s only To stop Quick Reports from being ed to you, but to still have them generated and available on the Webadmin, do the following: 1. Select Quick Reports from the main menu 2. Delete your address from the Reports to: field (leave it blank). 3. Select Save. Completely stop the report To stop a specific Quick Report from being generated altogether, do the following: 1. Select Quick Reports from the main menu 2. Remove the check mark from the Quick Report you want to stop. 3. Select Save. Your report will no longer be available on the Webadmin and will not be ed to you again. Quick Reporting Page 19

26 Using Quick Demand Reports Quick Demand Reports are a special class of Quick Reports that are only generated once (not on a regular basis like other Quick Reports). Instead of receiving reports for a particular day, week, or month, you can create a Quick Report that covers any date range, starting as far back as the logs are stored. Creating a Quick Demand Report The Quick Demand Reports are only accessible from the Demand Reports menu option. To create a Quick Demand report, do the following: 1. Select Demand Reports from the main menu. 2. Select the Quick Demand Report you want. 3. Enter the Start Date and End Date for the report. Enter all dates in the following format: MONTH DAY, YEAR. For example: November 25, 2006 Tip You only need to enter the first three letters of the name of the month. For example: Nov 25, If you chose the Top Websites Accessed or the Top Websites Denied report, enter the number of entries you want in the Number of hosts to display field. 5. If you want the report ed to you, enter your address in the field. You can send the reports to multiple address by separating each address with a comma (,) and no spaces. 6. Select Submit. The new report is now being processed and will be ready for viewing in as little as a few seconds. If you provided an address, you should receive the report shortly. If you did not provide an address, or want to access it immediately, you can view it over the Web. Figure 10: Quick Demand Reports Quick Reporting Page 20

27 Viewing a Quick Demand Report Over the Web The Webadmin can be used to access and view reports. However, a report may not be available immediately after you create it. The Reporter must first process the report, which may take only a second, or up to a few minutes, depending on the size of the report and the number of other reports currently waiting to be processed on the server. When the Reporter is processing a Quick Demand Report, the status of the report changes from Waiting, to Started Processing, and finally to Processed when the Report is ready. Quick Demand Reports can be viewed in HTML, PDF, CSV, or plain text. However, only PDF and the default View mode can contain graphs. Other formats contain data tables only. 1. Select Demand Reports from the main menu. If the status of your report is still Waiting or Started Processing, you can periodically select the Refresh link to reload the page and check to see if the report is finished processing. Tip To quickly view the report in the default format, select the name of the report instead of following the next steps. 2. Select View beside the name of the report you want to view. The name of each Quick Demand Report is automatically generated. It always includes the type of report and the date range that the report covers. 3. Select View to view the report in the default format or select PDF, HTML, CSV, or Plain Text to view the report in that format. Figure 11: Choose format to view report Sending a Quick Demand Report By If you did not enter your address when creating the report or you want to resend the report to yourself or to others, you can still do so after the report has been created. You can also send to one or more addresses as a carbon copy (cc:) or a blind carbon copy (bcc:) as you would a regular . To your report, do the following: 1. Select Demand Reports from the main menu. 2. Select View beside the report you want to send. 3. Select Enter the addresses to send the report to. Quick Reporting Page 21

28 By default, the report is sent as part of the body. If desired, you can choose an alternate option, either to a link to the actual report or to the report as an attachment in PDF, HTML (text only), CSV (comma separated values), or Plain Text format. Note that HTML (text only), CSV, and Plain Text files contain data tables only, not graphs. For this reason, only the first three options are recommended unless you plan to export the data into a third party reporting tool such as Microsoft Excel or Crystal Reports. 5. Select Send . Your report will now be sent. Deleting a Quick Demand Report If you no longer need your Quick Demand Reports, you can delete them to save room on your hard drive for other reports. To delete a Quick Demand Report, do the following: Warning This will permanently remove the report from the system. 1. Select Demand Reports from the main menu. 2. Select Delete beside the Report you want to delete. 3. Select OK to confirm the deletion. Your Quick Demand has now been deleted. Figure 12: Demand Reports menu Quick Reporting Page 22

29 Using Quick Search Quick Search is a simple way of searching through the logs for specific activity. Instead of scanning through the entire log, you can reduce the number of records shown by applying report filters. Quick Search Filter Descriptions The following filters can be applied during a Quick Search. Date The Date filter includes requests that occurred during the time you specify and filters out all others. When entering the date, use the format shown on screen or click the calendar icon to select a date from the calendar. Each Demand report should have a Date filter. By default, a filter spanning the last 24 hours is automatically assigned. Since logs are not stored forever, the report cannot include data from dates that are no longer stored in the logs. To check how long the logs are currently stored, see Accessing the Request Log on page 3. IP Address Every computer on your network is assigned a unique IP address. In most cases, each computer on the filtered network use a static IP address, which means each computer is always assigned to the same IP address. The IP Address filter is most useful when specifying range of IP addresses. For example, a particular department in your organization has four computers connected to the network. The IP addresses of these computers are , , , and If you want to include only requests from this department, add in the from field and in the to field. Note that the addresses provided are for example purposes only. If you want to include several users that do not have sequential IP addresses or you do not know the users' IP addresses, use the Client Name or Group Policy filters instead. Some deployments may use dynamically assigned IP addresses (users are assigned a new IP address each time they connect to the network) using DHCP along with some form of external authentication. These deployments should also use the Client Name filter instead of the IP Address filter. Client Name The Client Name is the name that you (or another Netsweeper administrator) have assigned to a particular user. You can enter multiple Client Names in this field, separated by commas and no spaces. For example: user1,user2,user3,user4 Quick Reporting Page 23

30 Each Client belongs to a Group. Select Client Manager from the main menu to view the Client Names assigned to you. Note that not all administrators have the necessary permissions to access the Client Manager. If you want to include an entire Group (or several Groups), use the Policy Groups filter instead. Policy Groups The Policy Groups filter includes only the requests made by users (Clients) in the Group you specify. Groups can contain more than one Client. To include an entire Group in the report (and exclude all others), enter the name of the Group in the Policy Groups filter, separated by commas with no spaces. For example: group1,group2,group3. URL Each web request is identified by a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). The URL is the full address that appears in the address bar of your browser whenever you visit a website. When you enter a URL (or several URLs) in this filter, the URL is included in the report and requests to all other URLs are excluded. A URL identifies a specific page at a website, not the entire website. For example, is a different URL than If you wish to include all the pages at a particular website (such as netsweeper.com), use the Host filter instead. Host Unlike URLs, hosts can house multiple web resources, such as an entire website; not just a single web page. To include requests to all URLs that have the same host, enter the host in the Host filter. You can enter multiple hosts, separated by commas with no spaces. For example: Denied Flag The Denied Flag indicates whether or not the request was denied. Yes if the request was denied and no if it was not. The Denied Flag filter can be used to include Only Denied Requests or Only Allowed Requests. By default, All Requests are included in the report unless you change this filter. Categories The Categories filter allows you to include only requests that were assigned to selected categories. To apply this filter, select Show List and select the categories you want to include. Note that if no categories are selected, this filter is not applied and all categories are included in the report. Quick Reporting Page 24

31 Performing a Quick Search To perform a Quick Search, do the following: 1. Select Demand Reports. 2. Select Search Requests. 3. Apply as many Quick Search filters as you like. Keep in mind that the more filters you apply and the more specific your criteria, the faster the results will be ready and the smaller the report. Figure 13: Quick Search Filter Options 4. Select Search. Your Report is now being processed under the name Quick Search Made at: (plus the current date and time). The report likely has a status of Waiting. 5. Select the Refresh link from the Demand Reports menu. 6. If your search is finished processing, the status of your search should change to Processed. If it is not processed yet, please wait a minute or two and try the Refresh link again. 7. Once your search is Processed, select the name of the Quick Search to view the results. If the Quick Search results report is very large, it may take some time to load. Viewing Your Quick Search Results A Quick Search may not be available immediately after you create it. The Reporter must first process the search, which may take less than a second or up to a few minutes, depending on the size of the report and the number of other reports currently waiting to be processed on your server. While the Reporter is processing a report, the status of the report changes from Waiting to Started Processing and finally to Processed when the Report is ready. Reports can be viewed in HTML, PDF, CSV, or plain text. However, only PDF and the default View format can contain graphs. 1. Select Demand Reports from the main menu, if you are not already there. Quick Reporting Page 25

32 2. If the status of your report is Waiting or Started Processing, select the Refresh link to reload the page and check to see if the report is finished processing. Repeat this step periodically until the Report is Processed. 3. If your report is Processed, select the name of the report you want to view. OR To view the report in a different format, select View beside the name of the report and select PDF, HTML, CSV, or (Plain) Text to choose a format. Sending Your Quick Search Results By If you want to save a copy of your Quick Search results or send them to another user, you can the results after performing the search. To your Quick Search Results, do the following: 1. Select Demand Reports from the main menu. 2. Select View beside the report you want to Select Enter your address in the Address field if you want the report ed to you. You can still view the report using the Webadmin if you leave the Address field blank. 5. Select your desired Report Delivery option. This option defines the format the report should be sent in (as the body; as a link to the full report; or as a PDF, HTML, CSV, or plain text attachment). 6. Select Send . Deleting Your Quick Search Results If you no longer need your reports, you can delete them. To delete your Quick Search Results, do the following: Warning This will permanently remove the results from the system. 1. Select Demand Reports, Scheduled Reports, or Continuous Reports from the main menu, depending on the type of report you want to delete. 2. Select Delete beside the Report you want to delete. 3. Select OK to confirm the deletion. Your results have now been deleted. Quick Reporting Page 26

33 3 Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Customize your reports to find exactly the information you are looking for using the Report Wizard. The Report Wizard can create a custom report once (using Demand Reports), send a report to you on a regular basis (using Scheduled Reports), or can provide a frequently updated summary of all activity on the network (using Continuous Reports). This chapter describes each of the different types of reports and includes instructions for creating a typical report, as well as for viewing, modifying, and deleting reports. If you want to use some of the more advanced features beyond those described in this chapter, see Advanced Features of the Report Wizard on page 3. Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 27

34 About the Report Wizard The Report Wizard follows a step-by-step process to help you create new custom reports. There are three types of reports that the Report Wizard can create: Demand Reports, Scheduled Reports, and Continuous Reports. See Custom Report Descriptions on the next page for more help choosing the right report for you. Once you have chosen the type of report you want to create, the next task is to decide which filters to apply. Filters are used to focus the report by including only the data you want, ultimately making the reports easier to read and interpret. See Using Report Filters on page 3 for additional help. If you are creating a Demand or Scheduled Report, you must decide what level of detail the report should include by choosing a Summary Group or a Detail Group. See Using Report Groups on page 3 for more information. Continuous Reports can only use Summary Groups. If you simply want to start creating reports, see Creating a Demand Report on page 3, Creating a Scheduled Report on page 3, or Creating a Continuous Report on page 3, depending on the type of report you want. Even if you do not provide an address to the Reporter, you can always view your reports using the Webadmin. You can also delete or edit a report after it has been created. Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 28

35 Custom Report Descriptions The following descriptions explain each of the three types of custom reports (Demand, Scheduled, and Continuous) and what they are useful for. Use this section to help you decide which report is the right one for you. Using the custom reports, you can apply filters to report on a specific time frame, on specific users, on specific websites, or on requests to specific categories. Demand Reports Unlike other reports, Demand Reports are only generated once. They are usually created for a specific purpose, often to investigate a suspected problem or for some other one-time purpose. These reports can cover any time period in the logs. For example, you look at yesterday s Scheduled Report and notice an unusually high number of denied requests occurred between 3:00-4:00 pm. You can create a Demand Report to show all denied requests during that time period and find out who made the requests, what websites the users were trying to visit, and what categories those websites were assigned to. Demand Reports can show both Detail and Summary Groups. Scheduled Reports Scheduled Reports are created once and then run on a regular basis. For example, set up a Scheduled Report to run daily and you ll find a report in your inbox every morning that shows the previous day s activity. Each of the Quick Reports is actually an example of a Scheduled Report. However, Scheduled Reports created with the Report Wizard are far more customizable. For example, you can apply filters to include only certain types of requests in the report and you have more options when choosing how often the report should be run. Scheduled Report made with the Report Wizard can be run: Every Minute Every 5 Minutes Every 10 Minutes Every 30 Minutes Every Hour Every 2 Hours Every 6 Hours Every 12 Hours Every Day Every 2 Days Every Week Every Month Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 29

36 While Scheduled reports are usually created in advance, you can also retroactively create Scheduled Reports. For example, create a Scheduled Report that runs daily and specify a start date of five days ago. In this case, the Reporter immediately generates five reports, one for each of the previous five days and then creates a new report once-a-day from then on (or until you delete the report). Scheduled Reports can show both Detail and Summary Group information. Continuous Reports Continuous Reports are graphs that are as up-to-date as possible. They are intended to be frequently updated (as often as once every minute) so that the latest information is included in every report. They are useful for periodically monitoring activity on your network. Continuous Reports show only summary information and are only available as line graphs. They do not contain detailed information about specific requests. The length of time that the report spans depends on how often it is updated. Reports that are updated every minute only span about five hours, but reports that are updated monthly can span about 25 years. The following table lists the approximate length that a report will span based on the Run Interval you specify: Run Interval Every minute Every 5 minutes Every 10 minutes Every 30 minutes Every hour Every 2 hours Every 6 hours Every 12 hours Every day Every 2 days Every week Every month Time Span of Report 5 hours 1 day 2 days 1 week 2 weeks 25 days 2.5 months 5 months 1 year 2 years 6 years 25 years Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 30

37 Creating a Demand Report This section describes how to create a Demand Report using the Report Wizard. Unlike other reports, Demand Reports are only generated once. These reports can cover any time period (provided that data for the time period is currently stored in the logs). Reports that start earlier than the current logs or use an end date that occurs in the future will appear to have no data for those time periods. Starting the Report Wizard To start the Report Wizard, you must be logged in to the Webadmin. Once you are logged in, do the following to create a Demand Report. 1. Select Report Wizard from the main menu. 2. Select Demand Report. 3. Select Next. Applying Report Filters Figure 14: Select Demand Report as report type Report filters are used to simplify and focus the reports. Only Internet requests that meet the requirements of your report filters are included in the report. The Date filter is the only filter that is applied by default. It includes only requests that occurred during the specified time range. Filters that are left blank are not applied. 1. Set the Date filter by changing the from and to date fields. 2. Apply any additional report filters you want. The IP Address filter includes only requests made from IP addresses in the range you specify. The Client Name filter includes only specific users (Clients) The Policy Groups filter includes only specific Groups of users (Groups). The URL filter includes requests to specific web pages. The Host filter includes requests to specific Internet hosts. That is, to entire websites. The Denied Flag filter includes either only allowed requests or only denied requests. Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 31

38 The Categories filter includes only web requests that were assigned to the categories you select. To apply the Categories filter, select Show List. See Using Report Filters on page 3 for more. 3. Select Next. Figure 15: Report Wizard Filters You must now add at least one report Group to your report. You can add multiple Summary Groups, followed by at most one Detail Group. Figure 16: Add New Report Group Adding Summary Groups A Summary Group shows graphs or tables that provide an overview of the data and general trends on your network, not detailed information about each request. See Using Report Groups on page 3 for more help selecting your summary and Detail Groups. When creating your Summary Groups, remember that selecting multiple Summary Groups can cause your report to grow very large and possibly exceed the maximum report size limit on your server. Note If you do not want to create any Summary Groups, skip ahead to Adding a Detail Group. Remember that you must create at least one Group (detail or summary) before you can continue. To add a Summary Group, do the following: 1. Select Add New Report Group. 2. Confirm that Summary Group is selected and select Next. Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 32

39 Figure 17: Add new Summary Group 3. Select the field on which the requests should be grouped. See Choosing Summary Groups on page 3 for help choosing a Summary Group. The field you choose here affects the type of graph that you will be able to use with the report. The following table shows which types of graphs and tables are available for each field. Report Type Data Table Pie Graph 2D Bar 3D Bar Line Graph Graph Graph URI Host of URI IP Address User Policy Group Category Denied Flag Date Range = The presentation format is available Figure 18: Select a Summary Group 4. Select Next. 5. Select the data fields you want included in the report. The order you select the data fields in is the order in which they are displayed. For example, in a table, the first column is always the field you grouped the information by, the second column is the first summary Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 33

40 field you select, the third column is the second summary field you select, and so on. To change the order of the selected summary fields, press-and-drag each selected field up or down the list. You do not have to select all the fields. For more on summary fields, see Choosing Fields on page 3. See Defining Requests, Pages, and Files on page 3 for more on the differences between requests, pages, and files. Figure 19: Select Summary Fields 6. Select Next. 7. To accept the default ordering, select Next. In most cases, it is recommended that you accept this default ordering. You can, however, change the ordering by selecting Ascending or Descending beside the field you want the report sorted by. (You can adjust the order by clicking-and-dragging a field up or down the list.) See Sorting Your Report on page 3 for more. 8. Select the types of graphs you want in the report and the graph options you want applied. See Using Graphs and Tables on page 3 for more. If you selected more than one graph, you can also select the Horizontal Layout to have the graphs displayed side by side in the report instead of stacked vertically. 9. Select Finish. Figure 20: Choose Report Presentation You can now add another Summary Group, add a Detail Group, or Finish the Report. To finish the report, skip to the section titled Finishing the Report. Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 34

41 Adding a Detail Group A Detail Group displays a table that lists information about each individual request in the report. You can only create one Detail Group per report. To create a Detail Group, do the following: 1. Select Add New Report Group. 2. Select Detail Group and select Next. Figure 21: Add Detail Group 3. Select one or more Available Fields to include as columns in the table. The first field you select is used as the first column in the table, the second field is used as the second column, and so on. You can remove fields from the report by clicking on selected Report Fields and you can rearrange the order of the fields by press-and-dragging a field up or down. Figure 22: Choose Detail Groups 4. Select Next. 5. Select Ascending or Descending beside the field you want the rows ordered in. You can also select Ascending or Descending beside additional fields to specify additional ordering priority. Each additional ordering priority is used only to break a tie in the previous priority when there are two or more entries with the same value in the previous field. See Sorting your Reports on page 3 for more. 6. Select Next. 7. Adjust the table options as desired. See Data Tables on page 3 for more on each of the table options. Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 35

42 Figure 23: Confirm Presentation 8. Select Finish. Finishing the Report Once you are finished creating report groups, complete these final steps to complete the report: 1. Once you finish adding a Report Group, you are returned to the page where you can add a new Report Group. Select Next to continue to the conditions screen. 2. Enter your address in the Address field if you want the report ed to you. You can still view the report using the Webadmin if you leave the Address field blank. You can also select additional ing options and conditions. See Using Options on page 3 for help. In general, the default settings are recommended. 3. Select Next. 4. Enter a name for the report in the Report Name field. Choose a unique name to help you remember what is in the report or what the report will be used for. If you have Admin level privileges, you can also choose to assign this report to another account or to make the report available to all accounts on the Webadmin. If you assign the report to another account, only that account will have access to it. 5. Select Finish. Figure 24: Name the Report Your report is now being processed. If you entered your address, you should receive the report in an soon after it is processed. See Viewing a Report on page 3 for more on accessing your report. Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 36

43 Creating a Scheduled Report This section describes how to create a Scheduled Report using the Report Wizard. Scheduled Reports are created once and generated on a regular basis. For example, Scheduled Reports can be generated once every day, usually at midnight at the end of every day. Starting the Report Wizard To start the Report Wizard, you must be logged in to the Webadmin. Once you are logged in, do the following to create a Demand Report. 1. Select Report Wizard from the main menu. 2. Select Scheduled Report. 3. Select Next. Figure 25: Select Scheduled Report as report type 4. Select a Run Interval. A report run Every Minute creates a report once every 60 seconds that includes only requests made during the last 60 seconds. Likewise, a report run Every Month is run once per month and includes the entire month s requests in the report. 5. Select Next. Applying Report Filters Figure 26: Choose Run Interval The next task is to apply report filters. Report filters are used to condense and simplify the reports. Only Internet requests that meet the requirements of your report filters are included in the report. See Using Report Filters on page 3 for more. Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 37

44 1. Apply additional report filters: The Relative Date filter allows you to specify when the report should start and end. By default, each interval starts at midnight so that reports run Every Hour are run on the hour, reports run Every Day are run at the end of each day, and so on. The IP Address filter includes only requests made from IP addresses in the range you specify. The Client Name filter includes only specific users (Clients) The Policy Groups filter includes only specific groups of users (Groups). The URL filter includes requests to specific web pages. The Host filter includes requests to specific Internet hosts. That is, to entire websites. The Denied Flag filter includes either only allowed requests or only denied requests. The Categories filter includes only web requests that were assigned to the categories you select. To apply the Categories filter, select Show List. 2. Select Next. Figure 27: Report Wizard Filters for Scheduled Reports You must now add at least one report Group to your report. You can add multiple Summary Groups, followed by at most one Detail Group. Figure 28: Add New Report Group Adding Summary Groups A Summary Group shows graphs or tables that provide an overview of the data and general trends on your network, not detailed information about each request. See Using Report Groups Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 38

45 on page 3 for more help selecting Summary and Detail Groups. When creating your Summary Groups, remember that selecting multiple Summary Groups can cause your report to grow to be quite large. Larger reports take longer to generate and download and may even exceed the maximum report size limit on your server. Check with your Master Admin account user to find out how much hard disk space is allocated for reports on your Reporting Server. Note If you do not want to create any Summary Groups, skip ahead to Adding a Detail Group. Remember that you must create at least one Group (detail or summary) before you can continue. To add a Summary Group, do the following: 1. Select Add New Report Group. 2. Confirm that Summary Group is selected and select Next. Figure 29: Add new Summary Group 3. Select the field on which the requests should be grouped. See Choosing Summary Groups on page 3 for help choosing a Summary Group. The field you choose here affect the type of graph that you will be able to use with the report. The following table shows which types of graphs and tables are available for each field. Report Type Data Table Pie Graph 2D Bar 3D Bar Line Graph Graph Graph URI Host of URI IP Address User Policy Group Category Denied Flag Date Range = The presentation format is available Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 39

46 Figure 30: Select a Summary Group 4. Select Next. 5. Select the data fields you want included in the report. The order you select the data fields in is the order in which they are displayed. For example, in a table, the first column is always the field you grouped the information by, the second column is the first summary field you selected, the third column is the second summary field you selected, and so on. To change the order of the selected summary fields, press-and-drag each selected field up or down the list. You do not have to select all the fields. For more on the available summary fields, see Choosing Fields on page 3. See Defining Requests, Pages, and Files on page 3 for more on the differences between requests, pages, and files. Figure 31: Select Summary Fields 6. Select Next. 7. To accept the default ordering, select Next. In most cases, it is recommended that you accept this default ordering. You can, however, change the ordering by selecting Ascending or Descending beside the field you want the report sorted by. (You can adjust the order by press-and-dragging a field up or down the list.) See Sorting Your Report on page 3 for more. Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 40

47 8. Select the types of graphs you want in the report and the graph options you want applied. See Using Graphs and Tables on page 3 for more. If you selected one than one graph, you can also select the Horizontal Layout to have the graphs displayed side by side in the report instead of stacked vertically. 9. Select Finish. Figure 32: Choose Report Presentation You can now add another Summary Group, add a Detail Group, or Finish the Report. To finish the report, skip to the section entitled Finishing the Report. Adding a Detail Group A Detail Group displays a table that lists information about each individual request in the report. You can only create one Detail Group per report. To create a Detail Group, do the following: 1. Select Add New Report Group. 2. Select Detail Group and select Next. Figure 33: Select Detail Group 3. Select one or more Available Fields to include as columns in the table. The first field you select is used as the first column in the table, the second field is used as the second column, and so on. You can remove fields from the report by clicking on selected Report Fields and you can rearrange the order of the fields by press-and-dragging a field up or down. Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 41

48 Figure 34: Select Detail Groups 4. Select Next. 5. Select Ascending or Descending beside the field you want the rows ordered in. You can also select Ascending or Descending beside additional fields to specify additional ordering priority. Each additional ordering priority is used only when there are two or more entries with the same value in the previous field. See Sorting Your Report on page 3 for more. Select Next. 6. Adjust the table options as desired. See Data Tables on page 3 for more on each of the table options. 7. Select Finish. Figure 35: Confirm Report Presentation After creating your Detail Group, you must complete a few final steps to finish the report. Finishing the Report To finish the report, do the following: 1. Once you finish adding a Report Group, you are returned to the page where you can add a new Report Group. Select Next to continue to the next step. 2. Select a Start Date. If you select Current Date, the first report will be run at the end of the current report period (for example, at the end of the day, if you selected Every Day as your run interval). If you select a date in the past, up to 5 additional reports will be Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 42

49 created immediately plus each subsequent report starting with the current report period will be run at the end of the period. Screen cap 3. Enter your address in the Address field if you want the report ed to you. You can still view the report using the Webadmin if you leave the Address field blank. You can also select additional ing options and conditions. See Using Options on page 3 for help. In general, the default settings are recommended. 4. Select Next. 5. Enter a name for the report in the Report Name field. Choose a unique name to help you remember what is in the report or what the report will be used for. If you have Admin level privileges, you can also choose to assign this report to another account or to make the report available to all accounts on the Webadmin. If you assign the report to another account, only that account will have access to it. 6. Select Finish. Figure 36: Name the Report Your report is now being processed. If you entered your address, you should receive the report in an soon after it is processed. See Viewing a Report on page 3 for more on accessing your report. Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 43

50 Creating a Continuous Report This section describes how to create a Continuous Report using the Report Wizard. Continuous Reports contain frequently updated summaries of the traffic on your network. Starting the Report Wizard To start the Report Wizard, you must be logged in to the Webadmin. Once you are logged in, do the following to create a Demand Report. 1. Select Report Wizard from the main menu. 2. Select Continuous Report. 3. Select Next. 4. Select a Run Interval. Figure 37: Select Continuous Report as Report Type Run Interval Every minute Every 5 minutes Every 10 minutes Every 30 minutes Every hour Every 2 hours Every 6 hours Every 12 hours Every day Every 2 days Every week Every month Time Span of Report 5 hours 1 day 2 days 1 week 2 weeks 25 days 2.5 months 5 months 1 year 2 years 6 years 25 years Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 44

51 5. Select Next. Figure 38: Choose Run Interval Applying Report Filters Reports filters are used to simplify and focus the reports. Only Internet requests that meet the requirements of your Report Filters are included in the report. See Using Report Filters on page 3 for more information. 1. Apply any of the available report filters to narrow your report results. The IP Address filter includes only requests made from IP addresses in the range you specify. The Client Name filter includes only specific users (Clients) The Policy Groups filter includes only specific groups of users (Groups). The URL filter includes requests to specific web pages. The Host filter includes requests to specific Internet hosts. That is, to entire websites. The Denied Flag filter can be used to include only allowed requests or only denied requests. The Categories filter includes only web requests that were assigned to the categories you select. To apply the Categories filter, select Show List. 2. Select Next. Figure 39: Report Wizard Filters for Continuous Reports Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 45

52 Adding Summary Groups A Summary Group shows graphs or tables that provide an overview of the data and general trends on your network, not detailed information about each request. For Continuous Reports, you can only add one Summary Group per report. To add a Summary Group, do the following: 1. Select Add New Report Group. 2. Select the field on which the requests should be grouped. See Choosing Summary Groups on page 3 for help choosing a Summary Group. Note that only five summary fields are available for Continuous Reports (IP Address, User, Policy Group, Category, Denied Flag). Figure 40: Select a Summary Group 3. Select Next. 4. Select the data fields you want included in the report. The order you select the data fields in is the order in which they are displayed. For more on the available summary fields, see Choosing Fields on page 3. See Defining Requests, Pages, and Files on page 3 for more on the differences between requests, pages, and files. 5. Select Finish. Figure 41: Select Summary Fields Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 46

53 Finishing the Report 1. Once you finish adding a the Summary Group, you are returned to the page where you selected Add New Report Group. Select Next. 2. Enter a name for the report in the Report Name field. Choose a unique name to help you remember what is in the report or what the report will be used for. If you have Admin level privileges, you can also choose to assign this report to another account or to make the report available to all accounts on the Webadmin. If you assign the report to another account, only that account will have access to it. 3. Select Finish. Figure 42: Name the Report Your report is now being processed. See Viewing a Report on the next page for more on accessing your report. Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 47

54 Additional Report Options Once you have completed your report, you can view it from the Webadmin, send it by , update it, or delete it. Viewing a Report A report may not be available immediately after you create it. The Reporter must first process the report, which may take less than a second or up to a few minutes, depending on the size of the report and the number of other reports currently waiting to be processed on your server. While the Reporter is processing a report, the status of the report changes from Waiting to Started Processing and finally to Processed when the Report is ready. Reports can be viewed in HTML, PDF, CSV, or plain text. However, only PDF and the default View format can contain graphs. 1. Select Demand Reports, Scheduled Reports, or Continuous Reports from the main menu, depending on the type of report you want to view. 2. If the status of your report is Waiting or Started Processing, select the Refresh link to reload the page and check to see if the report is finished processing. Repeat this step every few minutes until the Report is Processed. Tip To quickly view the report, select the name of the report instead of following the next steps. 3. If your report is Processed, select View beside the name of the report you want to view. 4. Select View to view the report in the default format or select PDF, HTML, CSV, or Plain Text to view the report in a different format. 5. Your report will open in a new window. Figure 43: Report Results Sending a Report by If you want to resend the report to yourself or send it to others after creating it, even if your chose not to the report when first creating it, you can do so after the report has been created. You can also send it to one or more addresses as a carbon copy (cc:) or a blind carbon copy (bcc:) exactly as you would a regular . To your report, do the following: Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 48

55 1. Select Demand Reports, Scheduled Reports, or Continuous Reports from the main menu, depending on the type of the report you are sending. 2. Select View beside the report you want to send. 3. Select Enter the address(es) to send the report to. By default, the report is sent as part of the body. If desired, you can choose an alternate option, either to a link to the actual report or to the report as an attachment in PDF, HTML (text only), CSV (comma separated values), or Plain Text format. Note that HTML (text only), CSV, and Plain Text files contain data tables only, not graphs. For this reason, only the first three options are recommended unless you plan to export the data into a third party reporting tool such as Microsoft Excel or Crystal Reports. 5. Select Send . Your report is now sent to the address or addresses you entered. Editing a Report Figure 44: your Report From time to time, you may find that a report you created was not exactly what you were looking for or you may find that your needs change over time and your existing reports need to be adjusted. Instead of creating a brand new report all over again, you can edit existing reports and adjust the settings to suit your needs. Do the following to edit a report: 1. Select Demand Reports, Scheduled Reports, or Continuous Reports from the main menu, depending on the type of report you want to edit. 2. Select Edit beside the Report you want to edit. All of your report settings have been saved and are automatically displayed when viewing the report. From here on, you can advance through the Report Wizard as you did while creating the report. 3. Adjust the report filters as desired and select Next. 4. To edit a report Group (either Summary or Detail Group), click on the name of the Group. To remove a report Group, select Delete. Note that you must have at least one report Group in your report. Once you have completed the Group changes, select Next. Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 49

56 5. Edit the remaining report settings as desired and use the Next and Finish buttons to navigate to the end of the Report Wizard. At any time, you can select the Prev button to return to the previous screen and make a change. However, once you begin editing a report Group, you must finish editing the report Group before you can go back to the Filters screen. 6. To finish editing a report, select Finish. Your report will now be regenerated with the changes that you have applied. Deleting a Report If you no longer need your reports, you can delete them. To delete a report, do the following: Warning This will permanently remove the report from the system. 1. Select Demand Reports, Scheduled Reports, or Continuous Reports from the main menu, depending on the type of report you want to delete. 2. Select Delete beside the Report you want to delete. 3. Select OK to confirm the deletion. Your report has now been deleted. Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 50

57 Accessing the Request Log Only Admin and Master Admin accounts have direct access to the full Request Log. This section describes how to open the request log and browse through the requests. Quick Search provides a simple way to search through the logs for specific requests that is accessible to all administrators. See Using Quick Search on page 3 for more. The entire Request Log can be opened using the Webadmin. To access the Request Log, select Request Log Files from the main menu. The following page appears: Figure 45: Request Log Files Screen On this page, you have the following options: Select Last Log Entries to view the 50 most recent entries. Select Delete to remove the entire log (not recommended). View the date of the oldest record in the log in the First Date column. View the date of the most recent record in the Last Date column. View the size of the log in the Size column. View the total number of records currently in the log in the # Records column. Click on the name in the Name column to view the log. When viewing the log, use the page numbers and the <<, <, >, and >> symbols to navigate through the requests. Custom Reporting With the Report Wizard Page 51

58 4 Advanced Features of the Report Wizard In general, there are five main tasks involved in creating a report with the Report Wizard: Applying report filters Choosing your report groups Sorting your report data Choosing how to display each report Group with a graph or table Choosing how and when a report should be ed This chapter provides more detailed information on each of these tasks and how to use some of the advanced features available for these tasks. Note that not all tasks are required for every type of report. Use this chapter if you need more information about a specific task in the Report Wizard, or to learn more about the available features. Advanced Features of the Report Wizard Page 52

59 Using Report Filters To reduce the size of reports and make them easier to read, report filters are used to extract only the log entries you need. For example, include only a certain group of users, requests to particular website, or websites in certain categories. Applying report filters is one of the first steps in creating any report with the Report Wizard. By default, a list of simple filters is displayed by the Report Wizard. While these simple filters are precise enough for most situations, there is also an advanced set of filters available if you require them. Simple Report Filters When creating a report with the Report Wizard, you have the opportunity to apply one or more filters to the report. To apply simple report filters, enter your criteria in one of the fields and only entries that meet those restrictions are included in your report. Figure 46: Simple Report Filters Date The Date filter is only available when creating Demand Reports. It includes requests that occurred during the time you specify and filters out all others. When entering the date, use the format shown on screen or click the calendar icon to select a date from the calendar. Each Demand report should have a Date filter. By default, a filter spanning the last 24 hours is automatically assigned. Since logs are not stored forever, the report cannot include data from dates that are no longer stored in the logs. To check how long the logs are currently stored, see Accessing the Request Log on page 3. Advanced Features of the Report Wizard Page 53

60 IP Address Every computer on your network is assigned a unique IP address. In most cases, each computer on the filtered network use a static IP address, which means each computer is always assigned to the same IP address. The IP Address filter is most useful when specifying range of IP addresses. For example, a particular department in your organization has four computers connected to the network. The IP addresses of these computers are , , , and If you want to include only requests from this department, add in the from field and in the to field. Note, the addresses provided are for example purposes only. If you want to include several users that don t have sequential IP addresses or you do not know the users IP addresses, use the Client Name or Group Policy filters instead. Some deployments may use dynamically assigned IP addresses (users are assigned a new IP address each time they connect to the network) using DHCP along with some form of external authentication. These deployments should also use the Client Name filter instead of the IP Address filter. Client Name The Client Name is the name that you (or another Netsweeper administrator) have assigned to a particular user. You can enter multiple Client Names in this field, separated by commas and no spaces. For example: user1,user2,user3,user4 Each Client belongs to a Group. Select Client Manager from the main menu to view the Client Names assigned to you. Note that not all administrators have the necessary permissions to access the Client Manager. If you want to include an entire Group (or several Groups), use the Policy Groups filter instead. Policy Groups The Policy Groups filter includes only the requests made by users (Clients) in the Group you specify. Groups can contain more than one Client. To include an entire Group in the report (and exclude all others), enter the name of the Group in the Policy Groups filter, separated by commas with no spaces. For example: group1,group2,group3 URL Each web request is identified by a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). The URL is the full address that appears in the address bar of your browser whenever you visit a website. When you enter a URL (or several URLs) in this filter, the URL is included in the report and requests to all other URLs are excluded. A URL identifies a specific page at a website, not the entire website. For example, is a different URL than Advanced Features of the Report Wizard Page 54

61 If you wish to include all the pages at a particular website (such as netsweeper.com), use the Host filter instead. Host Unlike URLs, hosts can house multiple web resources, such as an entire website; not just a single web page. To include requests to all URLs that have the same host, enter the host in the Host filter. You can enter multiple hosts, separated by commas with no spaces. For example: Denied Flag The Denied Flag indicates whether or not the request was denied. Yes if the request was denied and No if it was not. The Denied Flag filter can be used to include Only Denied Requests or Only Allowed Requests. By default, All Requests are included in the report unless you change this filter. Categories The Categories filter allows you to include only requests that were assigned to selected categories. To apply this filter, select Show List and select the categories you want to include. Note that if no categories are selected, this filter is not applied and all categories are included in the report. Advanced Report Filters To switch to the advanced filters, select Advanced Filter from the simple filters screen. Figure 47: Advanced Filter screen Advanced Features of the Report Wizard Page 55

62 To switch back to the simple filters, select Simple Filter. The advanced filters can be applied to the same fields as the simple filters but offer greater flexibility. To create an advanced filter, select Add New Filter Rule. Most of the advanced filters use the following string comparisons: Less Than Less Than or Equal To Equal To Greater Than or Equal To Greater Than Not Equal To Between These comparisons sort the entries chronologically, numerically, alphabetically and include only the entries that fall in the range you specify. Use the following guidelines when setting advanced filters: :41:01 is less than :40:55 because it occurs first chronologically. a is less than b because a occurs first in the alphabet. For example, apple is less than orange and ape is less than apple. IP addresses are typically displayed as four octets in dotted decimal notation (that is, four numbers between 0 and 255, separated by decimals). When comparing IP address, the first octet is compared first, followed by each subsequent octet, as necessary. So, is less than (because 10 is less than 192). and is less than Advanced Features of the Report Wizard Page 56

63 Using Report Groups Detail and Summary Groups define how the information in the report is grouped together. Group data based on the user name, website, or category information using Summary Groups or show a detailed log of each request using Detail Groups. Each report must have at least one Group. A report can use more than one Group in a report, including multiple Summary Groups and up to one Detail Group. However, you can not include multiple Detail Groups in the same report. In effect, this means you can create multiple reports in a single file. However, reports can get quite large when you include more than one Group. Choosing Summary Groups Report data can be grouped together using one of the summary fields. Depending on the type of report, there are up to seven types of summary fields available: URI Host of URI IP Address User Policy Group Category Denied Flag Date Range (Ranging from 1 minute up to 1 month) The Summary Group is the primary field used for the report. For example, if you select Host of URI, all requests made to a host are counted and displayed. In a table, each host appears as an item in the first column; in a pie graph, each host composes a slice of the pie; and in a line or bar graph, each host represents a point on the horizontal axis. The following example was created with a Host of URI Summary Group: Figure 48: Example report using Host of URI Summary Group Advanced Features of the Report Wizard Page 57

64 Choosing Fields These are the secondary fields. Once you have decided how to group the data, you can choose from of the following fields to include in the report: Request Count the total number of requests made by the Summary Group. Request Count Percent the proportion (percentage) of requests made by the Summary Group out of all the requests made. Requests Allowed the total number of requests made by the Summary Group that were allowed. Requests Denied the total number of requests made by the Summary Group that were denied. Page Count The total number of pages that were requested by the Summary Group. Page Count Percent the proportion (percentage) of pages that were requested by the Summary Group out of all page requests. Pages Allowed the total number of page requests made by the Summary Group that were allowed. Pages Denied the total number of page requests made by the Summary Group that were denied. File Count The total number of non-page files that were requested by the Summary Group. File Count Percent the proportion (percentage) of non-page files requests by the Summary Group out of all non-page file requests. Files Allowed the total number of non-page file requests made by the Summary Group that were allowed. Files Denied the total number of non-page file requests made by the Summary Group that were denied. When selecting these fields, the order in which you select affects the order they are displayed in the report. You can move a field up or down in the ordering by press-and-dragging it up or down in the list of selected fields. See the next section, Sorting Your Report for more information. Choosing Detail Groups Detail Group reports show each individual request (excluding those removed by the report filters). These detail reports are only available as tables. Since each request is stored in the Request Log as a single entry with seven fields, each of the fields can be included in the report as one of the columns headings in the table. Following are the seven report fields available for Detail Groups: URI URI host IP address User (Client name) Advanced Features of the Report Wizard Page 58

65 Policy Group Category Denied flag The following example was created with a Detail Group: Figure 49: Example report using a Detail Group When selecting the fields, the order in which you select affects the order they are displayed in the report. You can move a field up or down in the ordering by press-and-dragging it up or down in the list of selected fields. See the next section, Sorting Your Report for more information. Advanced Features of the Report Wizard Page 59

66 Sorting your Report Reports can be sorted to appear in many different ways. Choose the order that columns and rows appear in a table or the order on items along x-axis in a bar or line graph. The first step in sorting your report is to choose the fields in the report. Column Sorting The order you choose the fields in is the order of the columns (in a table) or the order of each item on the x-axis, or horizontal axis, is displayed in (in a 2D or 3D bar graph). Note that line graphs simply use a separate line for each field and pie graphs can only include one field. For example, in the following Detail Group example, the fields Date, IP Address, User, and URI Host were selected in that order. As a result, a table created with these fields has four columns ordered from right to left in that same order. To adjust the order after selecting the field, press-and-drag a field up or down the list in the Report Fields column. Figure 50: Detail Group column sorting If you are creating a Summary Group, you will have to choose one field to Group the information (URI, Host of URI, IP address, User, Policy Group, Category, Denied flag, or a Date Range) before choosing additional fields. This field is always used as the first column in a table or as the x-axis values in a bar or line graph. The remaining Summary Group fields are then sorted in the order you select them as shown in the following example: Figure 51: Summary Group column sorting Advanced Features of the Report Wizard Page 60

67 Row Sorting The order that rows (in a table) or groups of bars (in a 2D or 3D bar graph) appear in can be sorted alphabetically, numerically, or chronologically, depending on the field. For example, the User field can be used to sort the rows alphabetically, the Date Range fields can sort them chronologically, and the IP address field can sort them numerically. Each field can be sorted in Ascending or Descending order. When choosing your row sorting, the screen looks similar to this, though the Available Fields will vary. Figure 52: Row sorting a Summary Group To sort the rows, select Ascending or Descending beside the field you want to sort by. For example, if you selected Requests Denied Ascending, then Pages Allowed Descending, in order in a Summary Group, the report would be ordered from the highest number of Requests Denied down to the lowest. If two or more groups had the same number of Requests Denied, that block of groups would be sorted from lowest number of Pages Allowed to highest. In the event that a tie still exists after all the sorting options are exhausted, the remaining fields are used to break the tie in the order they were selected. Advanced Features of the Report Wizard Page 61

68 Using Graphs and Tables During the creation of most reports, you are provided the option of choosing what format the information is presented in. The Reporter has five different presentation formats available: Data Tables Pie Graphs 2D Bar Graphs 3D Bar Graphs Line Graphs Detail Group Options When creating a Detail Group in a Scheduled or Demand Report, only data tables can be displayed. Summary Group Graph Options Not all formats are available for every report. For example, since each entry in a Detail Group is unique, these report groups can only be presented as tables. Continuous Reports use only line graphs. For Scheduled and Demand Reports, the following table lists the available presentations for each type of report. Demand and scheduled Reports Report Type Data Table Pie Graph 2D Bar 3D Bar Line Graph Graph Graph URI Host of URI IP Address User Policy Group Category Denied Flag Date Range = The presentation format is available Continuous Reports All continuous reports are displayed as line graphs. Advanced Features of the Report Wizard Page 62

69 Data Tables Data tables are the most common format used for presenting reports and are always available when creating a Scheduled Report or a Demand Report. Selecting the table and modifying its options are the final steps in creating a report Group. When customizing the tables in your report, you may have some or all of the following options: Figure 53: Data Table options Select which fields should be used as Columns in the table. By default, all fields in the report Group are selected. Select whether the individual Group Details rows should be displayed. Typically, you should leave this option selected. This option is only available for Summary Groups. Select whether to display the Totals row, which sums up the total number (or percentage) of request, pages, or files out of all the records in the report. This option is only available for Summary Groups. Limit the number of records in the report by selecting Display first 10 records. That is, show only the top 10 entries in the report. You can also change the number of records the report is limited to by editing the number in the text field. Choose whether any URLs listed in the report should be hyperlinks pointing to the actual URL by selecting Clickable URL fields (when available). This field is selected by default. Pie Graphs Pie graphs are useful for comparing a single field in the report. These graphs are only available for Summary Groups. Each slice of the pie is a different color and represents one of the Summary Groups (this is the IP address, user, Policy Group, category, or denied flag setting that you will select when creating the report.) Pie graphs are not available for URI or Host of URI Summary Groups. Advanced Features of the Report Wizard Page 63

70 Figure 54: Pie Graph options Select which Data field to use in the pie chart. Remember, you can create several pie graphs, each with a different Data field. Select the Legend Type. The legend is a table used to identify which Group is associated with each slice of the pie. You can choose a legend with or without the numerical values displayed or you can choose to display labels for each slice surrounding the pie graph. In general, Legend Without Values is not recommended for large reports. Limit the number of records in the report by selecting Display first 10 records. That is, show only the top 10 entries in the report. You can also increase or decrease the limit by editing the number in the text box. Select Explode Sectors to break up the slices. That is, this option adds some space between the slices so that smaller slices are more easily distinguished from each other: Figure 55: Exploded Sectors example This option is useful if you have many small slices that are hard to identify when displayed together. This is often the case with Summary Groups based on the User on systems with hundreds or thousands of users. Select Transparent colors to have the pie slices displayed using transparent colors. Advanced Features of the Report Wizard Page 64

71 2D Bar Graphs 2D bar graphs have the following options: Figure 56: 2D Bar Graph options Select the Data fields you want. Each selected field is included as a different colored bar. Each different Summary Group has its own set of bars. Select how each set of bars should be displayed using Chart Type: Figure 57: Stacked Bars Figure 58: Side-byside Bars Figure 59: Overlapped Bars Limit the number of records in the report by selecting Display first 10 records. That is, show only the top 10 entries in the report. You can also change the number of records the report is limited to by editing the number in the text box. Add a Polynomial Trendline to chart the direction of changes in activity. This option is only recommended for Date Range Summary Groups. You can also edit the order of the trendline. Display a 3D border around each bar. This option helps to make small, hard-to-see bars more visible on the graph. Choose to show the bars using Transparent Colors. 3D Bar Graphs 3D bar graphs have the following options: Advanced Features of the Report Wizard Page 65

72 Figure 60: 3D Bar Graph options Remove any Data fields you do not want to include. Each selected field is included as a different colored bar. Select how each set of bars should be displayed using Chart Type. Figure 61: Front to Back Bars Limit the number of records in the report by selecting Display first 10 records. That is, show only the top 10 entries in the report. You can also change the number of records shown. Display trendline to chart the direction of changes in activity. Choose to display the bars using Transparent colors. Line Graphs Line graphs are only available if you select a Date Range as your Summary Group. Line graphs have the following options: Figure 62: Line Graph options Choose the Data fields that are included in the report. Each selected field is included as a different colored bar. Each field is shown as a different colored line in the graph. Advanced Features of the Report Wizard Page 66

73 Select the Chart Type to use. In a Polyline graph, the line is composed of many small line segments, creating a jagged effect. A Stepped Line shows a plateau at each data point and a Spline shows a single curved line. A Filled Area graph fills the area between the lines. Figure 63: Polyline Figure 64: Stepped Line Figure 65: Spline Figure 66: Filled Area Limit the number of records in the report by selecting Display first 100 records. That is, show only the first 100 records in the report. You can also change the number of records shown to a number other than 100. Display trendline to chart the direction of changes in activity. Choose to display the bars using Transparent colors. Advanced Features of the Report Wizard Page 67

74 Using Options The Report Wizard offers several options for how and when s should be sent. Report Delivery offers options for how the report is delivered, Empty Reports offers options for how to handle empty reports, and Conditional Sending allows for the addition of conditions under which the report will be sent. Figure 67: Options screen in Report Wizard Report Delivery Enter your address in the Address field and the report will be sent as an shortly after it is processed. If you want to send the report to more than one address, you can enter multiple addresses, separated by commas with no spaces. For example: If you leave the Address field blank, the report is not ed but you can still view the report using the Webadmin. See Viewing a Report on page 3. Select your desired Report Delivery option. The default option, the Report, is recommended. However, the following options are also available: the Report This is the default option. This HTML based format can be read by most clients and can contain all table and graph formats. Advanced Features of the Report Wizard Page 68

75 Links to the Report The sent includes only links that you can use to download the report in various formats. The report is served from your Netsweeper Server. the Report as Attached PDF File Attach the report as a PDF the Report as Attached HTML (text only) File Attach the report as an HTML text file. (No graphs are shown in a text file). the Report as Attached CSV File Attach the report as a comma separated values (CSV) file. the Report as Attached Plain Text File Attach the report as a plain text (.txt) file. Empty Reports Select an Empty Reports option to decide what to do if a report contains no data. The options are: Do not the report No is sent to the addresses you entered. a Notification about such Reports Instead of a report, an is sent that explains that your report was empty. Do not Reports but a Notification about empty Reports This setting overrides all of the above settings. Reports are never sent by , but in the event that an empty report is generated, a notification is sent. Conditional Sending With Conditional Sending, you can add one or more conditions under which the Report will be sent. Choosing any conditions means that the report will only be sent if the conditions are met. To create Sending Conditions, select Add Sending Condition from the Options screen in the Report Wizard. You will get the following screen: Figure 68: Sending Conditions Screen Advanced Features of the Report Wizard Page 69

76 To add a condition, do the following: 1. Select Add Condition beside one of User, Page Count, or Order Number. 2. Select one of the string comparison options and enter a user, or a number, depending on which condition you selected. For more information, see Advanced Report Filters on page 3, as the conditions will behave similarly. 3. Select Finish. You have now added a Sending Condition. 4. Follow steps 1-3 until you have added all the conditions that you want. 5. If you want to send a message when the conditions are met, instead of the report, enter the message text in the box provided and select Save. 6. Select Finish. The report will now be sent only if the conditions are met. Advanced Features of the Report Wizard Page 70

77 5 Reporter Settings Only the built-in Master Admin account can access these settings through the Webadmin. Other Admin and Sysop accounts do not have access to these settings. If you do not have access to the built-in Master Admin account, contact an administrator with access if you need the Reporter settings adjusted. The Reporter Settings control how much disk space is used by the Reporter and define which types of requests are defined as pages. The Webadmin Settings allow you to specify which Quick Reports are available to all other accounts on the Policy Server. This chapter describes how each of these settings work and how to adjust them. Reporter Settings Page 71

78 Setting Report Restrictions The Reporter Settings allow you to set various restrictions on what types of reports are available, how much hard disk space the Reporter can use and what information that report should include. The following report settings are accessed by selecting System Configuration from the main menu and selecting Reporter Settings. Note Make sure that you apply settings after making any changes to the Reporter Settings. To apply settings, select Apply Settings from the top right-hand corner of the Webadmin, and select Apply. Figure 69: Reporter Settings Allowing or Hiding Demand, Scheduled, and Continuous Reports Allow Demand Reports Choose whether or not to allow users to create and view Demand Reports. Note that this will also disable Quick Search and Quick Demand Reports. Allow Scheduled Reports Choose whether or not to allow users to create and view Scheduled Reports. Allow Continuous Reports Choose whether or not to allow users to create and view Continuous Reports. Reporter Settings Page 72

79 Setting Hard Disk Restrictions Max Report Size Set the maximum size (disk space) that a report can reach. Reports that exceed this size are not processed, not available on the Webadmin, and not ed. Max Temporary File Size During processing, each report creates a temporary file to store data that is removed after the report is finished. Set the maximum size of this file. Max Disk Space For All Reports Set a limit on the total amount of disk space allowed for all reports on the server. The Reporter regularly checks the total size of all reports on the server and removes the oldest reports if the limit is exceeded. Max Size Set the maximum size of a report that can be ed. If a report exceeds this size, either no is sent, an with links to the report on the server is sent, or a notification indicating that the report was too large is sent, depending on the settings of the individual report. Max Number of Report Instances Per Report Scheduled Reports are generated many times. Each time it is generated, a new instance is created. Set the limit on the number of instances that are stored on the server. Once the limit is reached, the oldest reports are removed from the server to make room for new reports. Note that old Scheduled Reports may be removed before this limit is reached if the Max Disk Space For All Reports limit is reached first. Customizing Report s Reporter Web Address (For Links in Message) Enter the host and Webadmin port of the Reporting Server. In single server deployments, this should always be unless you are using a port other than 8080 for the Webadmin. 'Report Has No Data' Message This is the message that is sent by when an empty report is generated. In the actual , %N is replaced by the name of the report and %D is replaced by the date of the report. Reporter Settings Page 73

80 Defining a Page With HTML Extensions Counting the number of requests a user makes does not necessarily provide a true reflection of their level of activity. A single web page is often composed of many different resources, each of which must be accessed with a separate request. Because of this, when you access a single web page, your browser may make several requests in order to display the page. To allow you to report only on the actual pages visited, instead of the total number of requests, the Reporter classifies all requests as either pages or files based on the request's file extension. Every request is either categorized as a page or a file. Only requests with a file extension in the HTML Extensions list are classified as pages, while all others are classified as files. Requests commonly classified as files include images (jpg, gif, png) and cascading style sheets (css). Thus, the Reporter can report on actual web pages visited instead of simply the total number of requests. However, new file extensions may emerge, which means not all possible pages may be included in the HTML Extensions list, and a page may include multiple requests with file extensions in the extensions list. Thus, the Reporter can only provide an estimate, not necessarily an exact measurement of the number of pages accessed. Default HTML Extensions List The following extensions are included in the HTML Extensions list by default on all Netsweeper Servers: Common Text pages htm common HTML file. html common HyperText Markup Language (HTML) file. sgm - SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) file. sgml - SGML file. wml Wireless Markup Language (WML) file. wmlp alternate Wireless Markup Language file xhtml extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) file. xml - extensible Markup Language (XML) file. Active pages asmx - ASP.NET Web Service page. asp - Microsoft Active Server Page (ASP). aspx - ASP.NET (Microsoft.NET Active Server Page) page. Reporter Settings Page 74

81 cfm - Cold Fusion Markup language page. jsp - Java Server Page. xsp - extensible Server Page (Microsoft.NET). Script language generated pages cgi - common extension for Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts. ksh - Korn Shell script. php Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) script. php3 - PHP (version 3) script. php4 - PHP (version 4) script. phtm - additional extension for PHP script pages. phtml - additional extension for PHP script pages. pl - Perl script. py - Python script. sh - Shell script. shtm - Server Side Includes HTML. shtml - Server Side Includes HTML. tcl - Toolkit Common Language (Tcl) script. Editing the HTML Extensions List Once you add an extension to the HTML Extensions List, any files that use that extension will now be classified as pages instead of files. To add an extension to the HTML extensions list, do the following: 1. Select System Configuration from the main menu. 2. Select Reporter Settings. 3. At the bottom of the list beside the Add button, type the extension (without the dot. ). 4. Select Add. The file extension has been added to this list. If you remove an extension from the HTML Extensions List, any files that used that extension will now be classified by the Reporter as files. To remove an extension from the list, do the following: 1. Select System Configuration from the main menu. 2. Select Reporter Settings. 3. Select Delete beside the extension name you want to delete. 4. Select OK. The extension is now removed from the HTML Extensions List. Note Make sure that you apply settings after making any changes to the Reporter Settings. To apply settings, select Apply Settings from the top right-hand corner of the Webadmin, and select Apply. Reporter Settings Page 75

82 Allowing and Hiding Quick Reports The Webadmin Settings allow you to choose which Quick Reports are available for all administrators and users on the system. See Quick Report Descriptions on page 3 for more on the available reports. To select the Quick Reports you want available, do the following: 1. Select System Configuration from the main menu. 2. Select Webadmin Settings. 3. Scroll down to Enabled Quick Reports under the General Settings heading. 4. Hold down the Control key (Ctrl) and select the names you want available on your server. Highlighted names are available on your server, and names that are not highlighted are hidden from users. Select a highlighted name while holding the Control key to hide it from users. 5. Select Submit. The Quick Reports you selected are now the only Quick Reports available on your server. Note Make sure that you apply settings after making any changes to the System Configuration. To apply settings, select Apply Settings from the top right-hand corner of the Webadmin, and select Apply. Figure 70: Enabled Quick Reports Reporter Settings Page 76