Custom Compliance Report

[adz]

Hi guys,

 

I'm wanting to create a custom compliance report based on the "Compliance 1 - Overall Compliance" report but also have the 'Date Installed' as a field in the report.

The Overall Compliance report gives me everything except when the software update was installed.

 

Has anyone done this successfully?

 

Any help is appreciated.

 

Thanks.

[GarthMJ]

Each computer would l have its own install date, therefore I’m sorry to say it but adding that details to that report doesn’t make any sense.

[adz]

Each computer would l have its own install date, therefore I’m sorry to say it but adding that details to that report doesn’t make any sense.

I understand each computer would have it's own install date...whether or not it makes any sense to add it to the report isn't your call.

 

I've been asked to provide this information by the client, so a helpful response would be appreciated...thank you.

[GarthMJ]

This is probably not the answer you are looking for and this might come across the wrong way (it is not intended too, it meant to be a discussion point only) but when I consult on reporting for CM12/CM07, It is my job to tell clients that what they are asking for doesn't make sense and will not work as they expect.

 

Using your example. If I deploy 10 SU to a computer and the first 9 fail but he last one is successful. The report that you are looking for would show that the PC was successful, thereby showing an invalid result. The next problem you will have is the sheer volume of data that this will produce. If you have 2000 computer and you want to see the last results for those 2000 computer you are looking at (2000/80 lines) 25 pages of text (without headers, footers, etc.)

 

Now I'm willing to bet that you actually don’t want the "last status update" but the "last status update for each SU", and if this is the case, this is an insane request. Why?

 

Preform the following steps:

1. Execute the report call Compliance 5 - Specific computer for a sample computer.
2. Export the report to excel
3. Find the last line in Excel
4. Determine the # of SU(For my test computer Windows 8.1, there are 209-6 for the header of the report = 197)
5. Now for the math, 197*2000/80 = 4925 pages! (without headers, footers, etc.)

 

Who will ever read this report? The answer is no one.

 

Then I would expect the discussion to move that you don’t actually want see ALL SU but only the SU for the last month? How do you determine which SU have been apply in the last month? Do you need 100% accuracy? What do you do about old SU that got applied this month? What do you do about SU are say they are applied but later (~7 days) show as not installed? Ultimately I will ask why does it matter if SU are applied and successful? Isn’t the only real question is what SU are missing from a computer (now)?

 

So what do I do in this case, I ask questions to the client, What are you trying to do? Why is the data useful? How exactly will you use the data? Who will read the reports?

[Garrett804]

I'd agree with Garth on this one.

 

I had the same request made from my company for a report that shows the company machines and the last date they had windows updates installed. The issue though is as Garth says, The data coming back is false since even 1 good update can set the status to successful even though other updates were not successful. The way that I found to give the company the data they wanted was to do a report based on a software Update Group that I made of all the current updates. That report won't return a false result if a machine is not 100% compliant it stays in the non-compliant state. The report is the Compliance 1 report and it will give you the overall numbers for whatever collection of machines you are looking for the state of compliance in.