Re: Automatically run Unity reports

pmaglinger · ‎10-22-2002

I want to automate running Port Usage and Storage Usage (and possibly others) reports from Unity so that I can process the information into a weekly report. Has anyone done this or can suggest a way I can do this?

lindborg · ‎10-22-2002

There's no real easy way to kick off reports on a schedule basis for what you want to do here... In 3.0(1) and later you can use the new Message Store Manager to kick out scheduled reports on the storage usage (way more data than you get in the typical Unity report... a whopping 70+ columns of data per user!). That would take care of the storage usage stuff, at least in 3.x... since the MSM uses the SQL tables in 3.x to get what it needs to go traipsing through the message store this just isn't an option in 2.x.

As for the port usage... We could fairly easily modify the port busy report for 2.x (or the port usage reports for 3.x) off AnswerMonkey to run command line driven and dump their output in CSV where you specify... wouldn't be more than an hour or two's worth of work there. Once it's command line driven it's easy to launch it on a schedule using the Windows scheduler.

Not sure if this is what you're gunning for or if you had your heart set on the reports in Unity being automated...

pmaglinger · ‎10-22-2002

No, a command line running through the Windows Scheduler would be fine. What's involved in setting that up? Could it be set up for Outcall Billing and other reports also?

BTW - We're running 2.4.6.102

lindborg · ‎10-22-2002

No, you wouldn't be able to do that for all reports, just for the stand alone EXE for the port busy report... in 2.x that's about all you can easily get. In 3.x you could also get the message store usage info using the Message Store Manager out via CSV.

pmaglinger · ‎10-22-2002

So the EXE would be something The Answer Monkey would pound out and make available for download? If so, great! What do I owe you?

lindborg · ‎10-22-2002

Yeah, not a big deal. I'll take a look at it tomorrow, shouldn't be that much work. it'll just kick out a CSV that contains the minute of the day (starting from 1 and going through 1440) and and show the maximum number of ports in use for that minute. I could kick it out just per hour but that doesn't seem very granular...

pmaglinger · ‎10-23-2002

Thanks Jeff. At the risk of pushing your generousity, would it be too much trouble to add switches to the executable to select either by minute or by hour?

lindborg · ‎10-23-2002

Actually... looking at it this morning, there's a little problem here... in 3.x I could reasonably easily automate the port usage reports I wrote (there are a total of 4 of them)... however for the 2.x version it was based on pulling data out of the MDB file left around by the port busy report run in the SA (i.e. it generates more information and offers a graphical view of it). It doesn't go through the data files and pull out port info directly from the logs as the 3.x port usage analyzer tools do.

short story, I can't automate the 2.x version without also automating the SA reports which is, of course, what you wanted to begin with. Talking to the reports guys, there's no ready-made harness for kicking reports off in an automated fashion (i.e. passing in parameters to indicate date/time ranges, report type, who to run them against etc...). something on the to-do list but not there yet.

If you can get yourself to 3.1 I can help you out with both the message store stuff and the port busy info in an automated way...

pmaglinger · ‎10-23-2002

Thanks Jeff. I really appreciate it. We're in the process of upgrading to 3.1, along with getting Call Manager with IVR when we upgrade from Exchange 5.5 to 2000. If you don't mind pursuing this, I would appreciate it.