Dashboards
Once you have a number of computers reporting data for some time, the Dashboard offers a great way to see all that information at a glance. While the primary use of all the collected data is arguably running Reports, we offer a wide array of Widgets that can be used to have instant visualization of various data. Click the preceding links for in depth detail of the available widgets and functions. Here we focus on a casual tour of getting to know the interface, and a discussion of how you might use it.
If you click the ∨ arrow next to Dashboard in the left navigation you expand the list of available dashboards. Any user that gets a dedicated account (not a shared account, both of which are discussed later in Settings and KeyReporter) will see the Default dashboard initially. If they have permission to change their dashboard, one will be created under their account name and appear in this list when they make the first change from the Default. An admin with sufficient rights can save any dashboard to another name and alter other dashboards, thereby allowing for a locked yet customized dashboard experience for certain users. Clicking any dashboard in the list opens it, which is reflected by that name then being at the top of the list with an x next to it so it can be closed. Any changes to a dashboard are saved in near real time, there is no save or revert option.
By looking through the various example dashboards (in italics) you can see some ideas of how to use this feature. Note some of the widgets will not be interesting until there is more data in the system. The Purchasing dashboard and widgets will not be useful until you have purchase data for example.
Customizing
If you click the + in the header next to Main in the top left of the main pane, you can create a new Tab. Organizing different widgets into different tabs may be useful. You could have a Hardware tab, a Purchases tab, and others, or put everything on one long dashboard if you prefer. The + in the upper right on the other hand is for adding a new Widget to the current dashboard (and current tab). It will bring up a modal with a number of topic buttons by category. Click at least one of these to see the relevant widgets, and multiple to narrow the criteria further. For example clicking Computer and Hardware will produce a much shorter list of choices than just Computer. Each Widget has a description, and if already on the current dashboard will have a little number in the upper right of its block that indicates how many copies are already in use. Click Add on the widget you want to use.
Once on the dashboard, if you mouse over a widget the tools in its header will appear. There is a refresh arrow that is sometimes useful, although you can simply reload the entire browser window. The camera icon (pie and bar chart based widgets only) allows you to save an image of the current view of that widget as a png or svg for offline use (e.g. put in a Word doc report to the boss). The gear icon opens a modal to allow you to configure the widget. Depending on the widget there may be very few or a great number of options that can be configured. The Computer Property Widget for example might be used 4 times on a given dashboard, where each instance is configured to show (and bears the name of) a specific property like RAM, drive space, Model, etc. But in fact you could have two that show drive space, but one shows only Windows computers and the other MacOS. One Desktops vs. Laptops. Or 4 that are combinations of these two ideas. There are a vast number of possibilities in some cases. You can also allow the widget to dynamically show whatever is selected in the active Scope in the UI, or you can lock a given widget to a particular scope.
The Theme tab in the widget configuration modal allows you to apply a color scheme per widget. The About tab has a short description of the widget. The code tab (the <> in the upper right) has the code needed to embed the widget in another website.
Once configured to actually show some data (some widgets are more basic and do not need configuration to show something initially), you can then drag the widget where you want it and resize it as desired.
Guest and Community
If you select the Guest dashboard you will see it is blank by default. Guests therefore will not see Dashboard in the navigation sidebar and will be taken to Maps by default. However if you add a widget to the Guest dashboard, guests will then see Dashboard by default, and see the widget(s) you placed. Many sites do not bother with widgets for Guest view. Others will add some widgets, like the Raw HTML widget (which can be found in the "custom" category when browsing widgets) to embed information from other sites or just add helpful welcome information. The design is highly flexible to suit your individual needs.
Community is the same idea, but whereas Guest is what any unauthenticated user will see, Community is what an authenticated but unprivileged user will see. Details of how to set up your authentication access and provision rights are covered in other articles, and can be discussed with your implementation consultant.
Shared Dashboards
It is possible to have a number of people using external authentication all share a single account based on their group membership. Permissions choices for this should be considered carefully so they are not fighting each other, and details on this are covered in other sections. But imagine the possible use case where all members of the helpdesk group log in with individual SSO MFA Azure based auth, but are actually sharing an account internally. Because that account has a single dashboard they all share, you can customize one dashboard for 20 people in a group very easily. Of course if they are modifying computers and therefore the change history says "helpdesk" did it, that's not good for accountability. These are concepts to consider in how you delegate and grant rights in the platform.
See also ITAM Dashboards for more details.
Reports
To leverage all the inventory and usage data collected, the TDX ITAM Platform has a rich set of flexible Reports you can run. While the Dashboard provides a visual overview of data, Reports allow a more deep dive into the data (usually spreadsheet style). The main Reports page is a sort of dashboard of prebuilt one-click reports. We include a few for examples, and you can make your own in the Builder. These widgets simply have a name and description and buttons to run the report or add the tile to your personal Dashboard. You can click the Star on a report to mark it as a favorite and then use the tabs at the top of the main pane to filter the list. This can be handy in large organizations where the number of pre-built reports starts getting big.
Clicking the ∨ next to Reports will expand the sub menu items detailed below.
Saved Reports
This sub page for Reports is used to manage Saved Reports. This includes actual report results (Completed), as well as templates for Scheduled and On Demand reports. Similar to list pages, you can create Folders to organize reports. Advanced settings to control which users have access to which folders are managed in KeyConfigure and discussed later. As a starting point, there are a couple key folders:
- Uncategorized is like other pages anything not in a folder. If you save a report in this "folder" then only you can see it, regardless of another user being a full admin. Only the root Administrator account can see everything.
- Dashboard is all the back end reports made to support display of data on dashboard widgets.
- One-click is the special folder that puts the report on the tiles on the main Reports page.
- By default any other folder you make will be open to all users, and as mentioned you can limit Access rights using KeyConfigure if needed.
The UI here should now be familiar from the other list pages. You can filter the list of reports by choosing a Type and Folder of reports to display. You can move reports between folders by drag and drop. Note that if dragging to the trash, there is a warning symbol that appears on the right of the button. If you drag to that little symbol it will highlight and offer to be deleted immediately, otherwise it will be in the trash for 30 days before the system removes it. You can select multiple items with shift and control clicks as per other screens to clean up many items at once. It's good to have an annual review for large or outdated Complete files to keep things tidy.
Completed reports are actually the results of a previously run report. These are cached indefinitely, and occasional clean up based on age of file can be prudent. This is also why the option to replace prior runs when setting up a scheduled or on demand report can be important (see below).
On Demand are saved report templates that can be used to run a report without having to build it again. If saved to the One-click folder these are available to all admins on the main report page as a tile.
Scheduled reports are saved templates set up to execute on a schedule. These can be set with an email address to send notification when the report is ready (and include attached copies).
Uncategorized is a special folder that is also the default location for saving report templates. It actually takes author into consideration, so you can only see the reports you have created. The root Administrator however can always see all reports.
In the screenshot, the Shared folder has been created manually. As previously noted, setting robust permissions for access is possible in KeyConfigure if needed.
You can also filter by time of creation using the Clock icon in the upper right.
More Functions
There are several icons and controls in the rows for reports. The left most icon (3 vertical dots) is the pull down menu. For saved templates there are options to Edit and Run Now. These actions can also be seen further across the row with the Pencil icon and the Arrow run now icon. The option to View Similar will show a list of all saved reports that match certain parameters.
For Completed reports, the drop down has options to View (arrow icon also seen in next column over) and Download the file. The Download will always be in our proprietary KSR format using this option (offline viewer available here). If however, you View the report, the pull down menu in the upper right will have options to download in a variety of other formats like PDF and Excel. More on this below in the Builder section.
The option to Create Similar will take you to the report Builder having pre-selected many of the parameters used in the original. The option to Open in KeyConfigure works on Windows workstations with KeyConfigure installed to view the report in the admin application.
Report Builder
This page is where you create reports then run them, or save them as Templates for future use. The various features are fully documented so we will not repeat all of that information here. Keep in mind these pointers when getting started with the Builder:
- Search at the top for a report type. Once selected you can use the rest of the sections of the Builder.
- If you have a Scope set in the top navigation bar, that WILL apply to the report as appropriate, in addition to whatever you might set in the Target pane of the Builder. So, be sure to clear the scope in most cases unless you set it on purpose. This means that if you have an on demand report template with no Target, you can select a Scope before you run it from the widget to limit the results. Also, reports can only show data the person has access to. This means you can have one global report that is useful for on the fly limited reporting rather than have 30 reports that are almost the same but target different locations.
- Audit reports are your inventory of software. What is installed where, what version. Be mindful of the PRGM level audits as they are very large.
- Login reports are your way to report on computer use in general. These can show active and idle time along with Total time for a clear picture of actual use.
- Usage reports are for use of software. These again show active and idle time which may or may not be useful for certain software.
- Histogram reports show data visually over time in a graph as opposed to the numeric spreadsheet view of Login and Usage reports.
- There are a variety of other reports for different use cases, and they go as deep as the Event Dump which literally shows every single event of the target (log on, log off, launch, quit, idle, return, etc).
- If you plan to Save the report as a template, give it a Name, optionally pick a Folder, set to Run on Demand or on Schedule as desired. If you want it to be a One-click widget use that Folder, and you may want to give it a description in the Notes pane. If Scheduled, you may want to add an E-mail address for notification when it completes.
- Note that even if you are running the report on the fly, it's often useful to pick the Uncategorized folder. This makes a cache of the results so 1) you can sort the results instantly without the report re-running, and 2) you can save in PDF format (which is otherwise not available).
- Pay attention to the Options pane for the various report types. These options differ for each type of report and can have some interesting use cases.
- Always check what Columns you are including. The Group and Detail column choices can only be picked before you run the report. Standard columns can be changed in the results window.
- Note that setting Targets in the Web UI has become quite robust thanks to enhanced Search, and can be used with Filters making it very powerful.