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Meta: Developing Custom Reports

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Every now and then (perhaps once a year, usually soon after installing a feature release), I return to the challenge of writing reports in Commvault to report on current status consistent with the way I think. 

Is there a section of this community that deals with developing custom reports (and dashboards) in more abstract, theoretical ways?

I don’t want to be told how to solve a very narrow, specific problem, let alone told of five reports that display similar data; I want to discuss the mechanics of, for example, how to link from one Commvault report, such as one that might sort data by subclient ID, to another Commvault report that displays information relevant to one specific subclient ID. Another time I might want to discuss the various data display widgets in the report writing tools. 

I try to use Books Online, but I’m almost convinced my brain works differently than the editors of Books Online, so I’m looking for an alternate perspective or resource to address some of those arcane nuances. 

If it matters, we just put 11.25 up, coming from 11.22. 

(I probably should just get a job with PS, since they seem to be the ones who write all the obscure custom reports, but I like being a customer. :wink: )

Thanks,

Nick

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12 replies

Mike Struening RETIRED
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Hi @Nick Laflamme II , thanks for the post!

We have a really good article here on Custom Reports:

 

If there’s anything specific you’d like to see, I can talk to the author about making another article!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-struening
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Yes, that is a really good article. It doesn’t discuss how to link one report to the next, but it’s a really good article, and I’ve already saved the bookmark. 

christopherlecky
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Nick, 

Honestly I think the only way this will ever be built is if people in the community build it.

 

This is NOT a criticism of CommVault.

the issue fundamentally is that CommVault is a complex product being sold to all and sundry and generally the people who have to support CommVault are not necessarily on the same page as the developers and that is just a function of where the line in the sand should be drawn regarding technical knowledge to use the product. 

 

That is to say, even though certain features are not spelled out they are self-evident to say a developer. 

which means that if you have some development training things will make sense.

I suspect you are in a similar boat as I am. I am no developer, so many conceptual concepts simply go over my head.

 

The reporting tool is fairly straightforward with the assumption of a particular sort of pre-knowledge with respect to SQL and reporting in general.

So your best bet it to try to narrow down your question to a specific use case, spell it out as clearly as possible and in general someone will try to help.

 

The more vague the question the less likely it is that anyone will respond. I think generally people want to help but they don’t want to do your homework for you. 

this forum appears to be community driven and commvault supported but I do not think its an official support channel. More like a place to pick the brains of fellow CommVault aficionados.

you best bet to understand the reports is to download reports from the store and pick them apart.

 

I hope that helps.

I blame auto-correct for all misspellings, grammatical errors, and half-baked opinions.
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I think generally people want to help but they don’t want to do your homework for you. 

Boy, is that exactly the wrong thing to say to me. 

Please, tell me what I should do to learn how to link one Commvault report to another by design. And telling me to study an existing report that does this doesn’t tell me how the report author knew what to put for a target URL, for instance. 

christopherlecky
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I think generally people want to help but they don’t want to do your homework for you. 

Boy, is that exactly the wrong thing to say to me. 

Please, tell me what I should do to learn how to link one Commvault report to another by design. And telling me to study an existing report that does this doesn’t tell me how the report author knew what to put for a target URL, for instance. 

 

Use the dataset ID that is generated when you create the report as a source for your next report.

This is how you get the dataset ID:

https://documentation.commvault.com/11.24/essential/115149_copying_dataset_id_from_reports.html

 

Then when you create your new report you select http for your dataset 

and input the REST link from the previous. 

Pretty straightforward.

 

I blame auto-correct for all misspellings, grammatical errors, and half-baked opinions.
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Hi @Nick Laflamme II 

If you click on the column header in the report editor you will get column details on the right. You can click on formatters and set it up as shown in the screenshot

 

When you pick a report from the drop down, if it has inputs, it will display the inputs and you can pass values to it using an expression as shown. The columnId is the unique ID of the colum which holds the data that you want to pass as value. This column Id doesnt have to be the one on which you are enabling the formatter. For example you can have a client name column and a hidden client Id column. The formatter can be added on client name column but the value passed in as input can be from the hidden clientId column. Hope this helps.

 

 

Mike Struening RETIRED
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@Nick Laflamme II , appreciate the reply (as well as @Amey Karandikar ‘s assistance).

I’ll reach out to the original article author to see if she can put together a part 2.  Your request is not an uncommon one!!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-struening
Mike Struening RETIRED
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@Nick Laflamme II , check out this link:

https://documentation.commvault.com/11.24/essential/106857_creating_join_data_set.html

I put in some document feedback to adjust the title to mention combining multiple REPORTS which should make this easier to find.

Let me know if this helps!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-struening
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@Mike Struening , I’ve joined queries together before to add columns to a report to elaborate on terse data, but in this case, I’m trying to build a pivot table and only have the one column to use to identify the subclient being shown. I’d love to have more than one key column for my pivot table, but I haven’t found an example to study of that that in existing Commvault report pivot tables. 

(We have subclients who take a full backup once a week, and of course the night of the full backup varies from subclient to subclient to even the load out across nights. So, it’s common for these subclients to have an outlier in terms of data written every week. I’m trying to use a pivot table so that for any subclient, the weekly outliers line up in a day-of-the-week column so I can compare from week to week if the value is changing significantly. I want then to be able to click on (or hover over?) the subclient index number to display the client name, agent type, instance, backup set, subclient name, and probably owner’s horoscope sign so we know exactly what we’re looking at. I’m kidding about the horoscope sign.)

(I apologize to any of you who doubted that I had “done my homework,” such as @christopherlecky.) 

christopherlecky
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@Mike Struening , I’ve joined queries together before to add columns to a report to elaborate on terse data, but in this case, I’m trying to build a pivot table and only have the one column to use to identify the subclient being shown. I’d love to have more than one key column for my pivot table, but I haven’t found an example to study of that that in existing Commvault report pivot tables. 

(We have subclients who take a full backup once a week, and of course the night of the full backup varies from subclient to subclient to even the load out across nights. So, it’s common for these subclients to have an outlier in terms of data written every week. I’m trying to use a pivot table so that for any subclient, the weekly outliers line up in a day-of-the-week column so I can compare from week to week if the value is changing significantly. I want then to be able to click on (or hover over?) the subclient index number to display the client name, agent type, instance, backup set, subclient name, and probably owner’s horoscope sign so we know exactly what we’re looking at. I’m kidding about the horoscope sign.)

(I apologize to any of you who doubted that I had “done my homework,” such as @christopherlecky.) 

I apologize for hurting your feelings.

That was not my intent.

I blame auto-correct for all misspellings, grammatical errors, and half-baked opinions.
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I apologize for taking it personally. I know better. 

Mike Struening RETIRED
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Appreciate the reply @Nick Laflamme II !  This makes a lot more sense.

Was what @Amey Karandikar suggested helpful, or do you need data, more so than report config advice?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-struening
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