Monday, June 12, 2006

Reporting in Sharepoint 2003

ok.. so the question was "Robin, can we have some figures to see the growth of the number of teamsites. And if it possible also to see how fast the database is growing" I naturally replied "Ofcourse that is possible!" ;) Not knowing if such webparts or other functionality available I went searching and discovered the following options : - Install Reporting Server on the database server and install an information gathering tool (DEP) to fill the Sharepoint Report Pack database - Install the Sharepoint Reporting tool Well I began with the second solution because that did not require a change of the database server. This solution provides you with a XML file with all sorts of information about the Sharepoint environment. The 'problem' of this solution is that you always get an overview of the way 'it is' so you cannot see any grow or something like that. You have to manually do this. So we had the information we wanted but we had to manually make our own reports by using the information we got. The other solution required a change of the database server. First Reporting Server for SQL Server had to be installed (including installation of IIS). After that a staging and a reporting database were created. To get information into the database the data extraction tool DEP was installed on the front-end servers of our Sharepoint environment. A scheduled job was created to have this extraction take place everyday. The standard reports that were installed were fine and give the information we want. These reports could also be accessed with the use of the webparts that are installed with Reporting server. Conclusion If you want information about what the status of your Sharepoint environment is right now and you don't want to install IIS on your database server than the Sharepoint reporting tool is the tool for you. Otherwise, if you want to see trends about sizing and the growth of the number of teamsites then you are better of using Reporting Server with the Sharepoint report pack.

1 comment:

infopath signing said...

Thank you so much for taking the time to create this easy-to-understand post ! Just love it !