Reporting?

[thoule]

Has anyone written any cool reporting tools? I would assume they use the API? The boss asked me for a report showing deployment of a package over time (12 hrs, 24hrs, 36hrs) broken down by department. I need to show total computers in each department and how many have been updated at each of the time intervals. Obviously, the data is in the JSS, but getting it into a report like that is going to be a lot of work...

[scottb]

There's more than one current FR out there for more robust reporting on data that's already in the JSS.
I've been asked lately to do more reporting and it's very frustrating to see things I can't get to. It's actually more embarrassing as the people are used to SCCM and it's capabilities and seem to be wondering why we use Casper now. Not a good thing.

[millersc]

I have to agree with @scottb. I'm in the same scenario with SCCM and JSS in the same sandbox. Getting data out of the first is much easier than the second. Especially since we're using more scripts and customizing but can't report much of that out.

[thoule]

Reporting does suck. I'm just wondering what tools people have written to overcome that. Or do you just say 'no' when asked for a report about something?

[mm2270]

Aren't we all in the same boat? Its a rather crowded, noisy boat too! Pretty soon there won't be room for anyone else to come on board.

That said, @thoule I had done something kind of like what you're being asked to do with some Flash and Java update policies. I had to create several Smart Groups though. One for Macs still needing the new version of the software (also used for the scope I believe), and one for machines that had already been updated to that version. With the API I was able to pull a count of machines in each group and then do some math to come up with a percentage complete versus pending, etc. I think I also used a check-in range for the Smart Groups since I didn't want some of the dead systems out there negatively affecting the % numbers too much, i.e, no sense counting Macs that haven't checked in in months in the totals since they are likely decommed or are having check-in issues.

I don't know exactly what kind of report you're being asked to do here. If its just % numbers, something like the above might work. If you need charts and all, well, there still is Google Charts, which you pointed me to, but I haven't played with that in some months now. I don't know how its working these days. You could also pull computer group membership values from the API, like computer names by themselves and create some csv files from it to show which machines have done it and which haven't.
Note that this is not the same as showing actual policy status, since I'm talking about faking it with Smart Group collection instead. I really really REALLY wish we could see policy status from the API. The number of problems I could solve with just that information being available is YUGE! I think I may have just lamented about it not being there the other day in fact. *sigh*

[scottb]

I have done what @mm2270 did above. Hating every moment as I don't want to say "no, I can't" any more than I have to.
With all the other things being asked for, I have to put the reporting enhancements at the top of my list. Just seems that the folks in the usual enterprise "Wintel" space expect it.