What Is Global Monitoring And How Do I Set It Up?

Q: What Is Global Monitoring?

A: Global Monitoring is an optional feature that enables tracking of any-and-all report running within our software. Whether it's running a report in Report Runner Viewer, or running a batch or schedule of reports in Report Runner Batch, triggering a report with Report Runner Event Server, or viewing a report with a browser, iPad, or iPhone using Report Runner Web Portal, it's all tracked and logged (start time, end time, who ran it, and more). All of this data is logged to a SQL Server database (SQL Server is the only database currently supported).

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Q: How Do I Configure Global Monitoring?

A: Here are the steps:

1. Create a SQL Server database (call it ReportRunnerGlobalMonitoring or the likes); Note, it needs to be a FULL version of SQL Server (not Express); SQL Server 2005 or later. We strongly recommend creating a generic SQL ID/password that does NOT expire. Otherwise, once the SQL password expires, you must update all machines with the new configuration file. We see this password expiration issue "break" a lot of customers Global Monitoring configuration.
2. Start Report Runner Administrator application (this is an optional install when you run the full installer)
3. Click on "Passwords and Global Monitoring" tab in menu
4. Click on "Configure Global Monitoring"
5. Configure the SQL Connection string. We will show a default one. You can use any valid SQL Connection string, except Windows authentication. See bolded recommendation in step #1.
6. Test your SQL Connection to make sure everything is configured correctly
7. Click on [Create Tables] button (to create all the tables that Global Monitoring uses)
8. Choose the products you want to monitor
9. Click on "Encrypt SQL Connection String and Schema"
10. Copy the generated text to the file "gm.ini" and save it to your Jeff-Net Data Folder (not Program Files) on any machine that you want to track our software on. If this gm.ini file exists on ANY machine with our software, the work will get logged to the SQL Server database. If you start Report Runner, under the Help menu, there is an option to open the Jeff-Net data folder location.

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Once Global Monitoring is set up, in the Administrator application, you have access to canned reports for reporting off the Global Monitoring database and a live dashboard. The dashboard shows you everything from everyone that's running right now and statistics on what's run today.