PDF Reporting

What are Reports?

PDF Reports present the same widget data as dashboards on the screen, except that they output this as PDF. Reports may be generated in a number of ways:

  • From dashboard content - when viewing a dashboard.
  • On demand - based on a report template.
  • Scheduled - from a report template to be stored or sent by email.

View generated PDF reports

Users may view PDF reports that were scheduled and ran. Go to PDF Reports by clicking on the reports icon.

View reports icon

Export dashboard as PDF

When viewing any dashboard, click on the PDF on-the-fly button to generate a PDF report with the same content.

Generate PDF from dashboard button

Create a Report template

A PDF report template is required to generate a report if it will not be generated on-the-fly from a dashboard. ServicePilot provides some sample templates but these might be customized by cloning their definitions and making changes. It is also possible to start a report template from scratch.

  1. Using a user with admin privileges, log in to ServicePilot.
  2. Open SETUP > Parameters.
  3. Click on Reporting > Edit PDF reports.
  4. Select a unique report template name and specify if you wish to start from a blank report or an existing report template.
  5. Once the report template has been added to the configuration it can be edited using the blue pencil icon.

Add widgets to a report template

New widgets are added to report templates by dragging the icon representing the new widget types to include.

Before letting go, make sure that a purple highlight appears to indicate where the new widget will be placed.

Add widget buttons

Widget Type Use
Add Title or text Title or text Include a title or text widget. Remember to complete the title and text fields in all languages used. If the Iterations checkbox is checked then this title becomes a header that is repeated multiple times based on the Query field. {resource}, {object}, {view} and {hostname} variables will be defined based on the collection specified. At least one of these variables must be specified in the title. The first variable specified in the title can then be used in widget query field within the iteration. The end of the section is defined by the next title at the same level.
Add JSON widget definition JSON widget definition Widgets are defined in terms of parameters in a JSON formatted document. You may extract the JSON definition of any existing widget using the copy button on the existing widget and paste the text here.
Select existing widget Select existing widget Existing widgets from built-in dashboards or custom dashboards can be selected and a clone inserted.
Add View View A widget showing the current state of a particular view in the view hierarchy.
Add HTML and Metadata HTML and metadata A widget containing valid HTML text, pictures and metadata.
Add HTML and Metadata Page break Add a page break.

Edit report template widget parameters

Widget parameters are common between the report template widgets and the dashboard widgets. See the Edit dashboard widget parameters section for details.

Custom report template parameters

The report template name and description can be modified using the the Parameters button.

Report template Parameters button

Scheduling reports

Scheduling a report to be generated every day, week, month, etc allows for the ServicePilot data to be distributed to people who would not normally use the monitoring tool’s web interface.

  1. Using a user with admin privileges, log in to ServicePilot.
  2. Open SETUP > Parameters.
  3. Click on Reporting > Schedule a report.
  4. Either add a new report with the + Add a scheduled report button or use the blue pencil icon to edit an existing report schedule.
  5. Select a unique report name and complete the report settings before clicking on OK.
Report setting Use
Template Select a report template.
Generation frequency Specify the frequency at which the report will be generated. If Manual generation is selected, then the report will not be generated on a schedule but will be available to be generated as needed from the PDF reports menu entry. Reports generation times are based on the ServicePilot server’s local French time zone.
Content The Security group and High level view limit the results returned in the report to what users of the group have access to. The Content timeframe sets the time span over which data will be returned. This can be further filtered by a Time period filter that can limit results to open hours only. This is useful when the report should only include availability, performance and alert details for service level agreement monitoring that exclude scheduled maintenance periods.
Layout settings Indicate the page format to use and if a table of content is to be added.
Localization settings Set the report language, number format and time zone over which the data will be presented.
Email settings If the report is scheduled, it may be sent to a comma separated list of email addresses. The email Subject and Email body fields may contain {FREQUENCY}, {PERIOD}, {REPORTNAME} and {PDFNAME} variables.
Notes Add manual notes under titles based on the title reference specified.
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