Web App Server Reports

[parityboy]

Hello --

I'm current developing a web application for a customer and one of the things they have asked for is the ability to generate reports, something I have never done before. I assume it involves writing log entries to a database and then performing queries upon that database?

Is there a standard format for server reports, and if so what is it?

Many thanks.

 

[PTNL]

No, there is no standard format. However, we may be able to give some guidance and suggestions, in exchange for answers to the following questions:

- What kind of report(s) were you asked to generate? Be specific.
- Does all of the necessary raw data already exist? If so, what is it stored in? If not, would you be tasked with setting up that data capture?
- Would all of the data be located within your network, or would you be required to query/join data from sources outside of yours (or your customer's) network?
- Have you been provided any mockups of the desired result?
- How often would this report need to be generated? Under what condition would this report be generated? (i.e. scheduled task, or "on demand" from a click event)

 

[Dogs]

I assume it involves writing log entries to a database and then performing queries upon that database?

This is what we do most of the time. Usually our users prefer having a website report pieces of the data (with the ability to export the reported data to CSV if they'd like to work with it in Excel), so for our reporting we have an ETL component which actually grabs the log files, finds the relevant data and puts it in the database, and a 'report generating' component, where the users can select metrics and date ranges and generate a report specific to what they're looking for.

Other times, though users expect a weekly report in their inbox every Monday, or every Wednesday, etc. You'll have to figure out specifically what your users want from the reporting before any of us can really give you specific help.

 

[parityboy]

@PNTL,@Dogs

Many thanks for the replies.

The reports need to consist of the times and dates of user accesses and operations, as well as exceptional events such as failed authentication and failed delivery of data. The raw data is already being stored in a log database private to the web app, there will be no need to pull data from other sources.

The report will need to be generated daily. The best option at the moment would be to use a command line tool to generate the report, since it's easier to to run something like that from a batch script.

We've not been provided with mock ups so far.