SMS provides comprehensive report design, scheduling, and viewing capabilities to help you manage and present data. You can use reports to analyze and distribute inventory and SMS status data throughout your organization.
SMS includes several predesigned reports that you can run. Report topics include hardware and software inventory, network configuration, software distribution, the SMS status system, and product compliance. You can use these reports as they are, modify them, or create new reports by using Crystal Info Report Designer, a tool provided with SMS. You can use this tool to create many different types of reports, including cross-tab, sub, conditional, and form reports.
Reports must be scheduled to run. You can schedule reports to run immediately or at any time you choose. If a report successfully runs, the information obtained appears in the details pane of the SMS Administrator console.
Reports must be set to query your SMS site database. When you use the predesigned reports or you create a new report, the database location is automatically set to your SMS site database. However, if you import a report from another SMS site or another source, you must use the Set Location tool provided with SMS to reset the database location to your SMS site database. Using the Set Location tool also resets the default user rights.
SMS provides two additional Help files to help you work with reports. One file, available with Crystal Info, describes how to schedule, run, view, check report status, add a new report file to the SMS Administrator console, and how to open Crystal Info Report Designer. For more information, see the Crystal Info Help file.
The second Help file, available with Crystal Info Report Designer, describes how to modify existing reports and create new reports. This file must be opened from within Crystal Info Report Designer.
Related Topics
Reset a Report's Data Access Source
About Installing Crystal Info for SMS