Working with Custom Reports

FlexNet Manager Suite 2019 R1 (On-Premises Edition)

Your organization may use a suitable strategy to create a set of custom reports. The following are some example strategies that could be used to create a set of custom reports.

Demand-based reporting

You can create a set of reports to meet the demands of one or more users such as a software asset manager. The following list provides a set of example questions that you can ask yourself before building a set of reports:
  • What type of reports are required to provide data on current license position?
  • Which reports should be good to better prepare for software audits or true-ups?
  • Which reports should be helpful in accessing CALs usage?

Software asset management maturity level-based reporting

Reports can be used to measure software compliance against a specific Software Asset Management (SAM) maturity level (SAML). For each additional level of compliance, you may need to produce additional reports. For example,
  • For the first level, you may need some reports reflecting software installations on various inventory devices within your organization.
  • The second level may require additional reports on license compliance and unlicensed application installations.
  • The third level may require some advanced reports like unrecognized evidence or scheduled payments.

Task-based reporting

You can also create reports based on the software license optimization tasks that are performed on a regular basis. For example:
  • A Monthly Tasks folder might have the following set of reports:
    • Devices in storage for over three months
    • Multiple assets assigned to a user
  • A Weekly Tasks folder might have the following set of reports:
    • Assets assigned to terminated employees
    • License compliance changes for a publisher

Reports folders

To separate the custom reports from the inbuilt reports, it is recommended that you create a new folder hierarchy to save your custom reports. You can use the Create a folder, Rename folder, and Delete folder icons (on the Reports Index page) to manage folders. To create a subfolder, select the parent folder from the index and click Create a folder icon.

  • To create a custom folder structure, you need to highlight the folder where you will create your structure (the top level to start), click the Create Folder icon, and provide a folder name.
  • To avoid confusing your custom reports with the inbuilt reports, it is a best practice to create your own folder structure for all your custom reports. Private reports should ideally only be created in your own personal use folders, and public reports created in general/team folders.
  • To rename a folder, first select the Report folder, then click the rename folder icon, rename the folder and click the check to save or the discard icon to discard the changes.
Note: You cannot delete or rename pre-existing folders.
CAUTION:
Deleting a folder will also delete the reports within that folder, including the private reports created by other operators which you will not be able to see.