Netaphor SiteAudit offers the ability to create reports from any SiteAudit view and publish the reports to a web site so that users can view reports using a browser.  This article describes how to prepare for a Reporting Web site installation and how to troubleshoot basic IIS issues related to the Reporting Web site.

Feature Overview

The Reporting Web site is a new feature available since SiteAudit 4.0 that allows users to obtain SiteAudit reports over the Intranet or Internet.  The Reporting Web site is an ASPX site that runs on Microsoft IIS 6 or later.  Authorized users can publish reports to the Reporting Website directly from the SiteAudit Viewer and the reports can be accessed over the Web using Internet Explorer 7 or later.   

Figure 1 shows an example of the default Reporting Web site installed with SiteAudit 4.0.  Reports can obtain data from different databases by configuring which database is accessed by the Reporting Web site.  When a report format is selected, the report is generated automatically and obtains the latest information stored in the SiteAudit database.

Figure 1 –Netaphor SiteAudit Reporting Website

Installing the Reporting Web Site

The Reporting Web site is installed using the typical SiteAudit installer program but new options have been added.  The following information describes the installation of the Reporting Web site component.  

IIS 6 or later must be installed prior to installing the Reporting Web site.  Otherwise, the component will be disabled in the installer. Note that the Reporting Web site is not supported on Windows XP systems because it does not support the minimum IIS 6 requirement.

The Reporting Web site requires a license upgrade that is free to customers who have a current support contract.  Contact Netaphor Support for a new license for the Reporting Web site.

The SiteAudit installation welcome is the first screen that appears when the installer is launched.  The SiteAudit schema and version are displayed at the bottom of the panel. Click Next to continue.

 

 

Users must accept the End-User License Agreement in order to install any SiteAudit component.  Check the box to accept the license agreement and click the Next button to continue.

 

 

 

To install the Reporting Web site, select the Access Reports via a browser option.  The View and Setup Reports only option is selected automatically because the SiteAudit Viewer is a required component when installing the Reporting Web site.  Click the Next button to continue.

 

 

 

Choose the installation scope option and click the Next button to continue

 

 

 

Click the Next button to accept the default SiteAudit installation folder or click the Change button, select the installation folder and then click Next to continue.

 

 

 

 

Click the Next button to accept the default Web site installation folder or click the Change button, select the installation folder and then click Next to continue.

 

 

Enter the SQL server name into the Server textbox.  If the SQL server contains instances, the instance name must be specified.  For example:  DEVSQLSERVER\INSTANCE.  Enter the credentials to access the SQL server and click the Test button to confirm the credentials are correct.  A “Success” dialog appears if the credentials are valid or an error message will appear if they are not.

 

Select the database that will be accessed from the Reporting Web site.  Note that reports run from the Reporting Web site will contain data from the selected database.  The Web Site Database Configuration dialog shown below is also accessible from within the SiteAudit Viewer.  This allows users to choose different SQL servers and databases.

 

Once the database has been selected, click the OK button to proceed.

 

 

 

 

Click the Install button to begin the installation.  Once the installation begins, users may be required to elevate to administrator privileges.

 

 

 

 

Once the installation has completed, read the license information and click the Next button to continue.

 

 

 

Click Finish to complete the installation setup process

 

Reporting Web Site Installed Files

When the Reporting Web site is installed, a virtual directory is created and IIS is configured to run the application.   The following screenshot shows the files and folders installed for the Reporting Web site. 

IIS Configuration

When the Reporting Web site is installed, a virtual directory is created and IIS is configured to run the application.   The following screenshot shows the files and folders installed on the Reporting Web site. 

The App_Data folder contains the sample views that are automatically installed and available on the Reporting Web site.  The App_Theme folder contains the default theme for the site.  Users can create their own themes and place them into this folder. 

An application pool is automatically created for the Reporting Web site to prevent conflicts with other web applications.

 

The following screenshot shows that the default theme is being used for the site.  Users are permitted to create their own themes.  The theme used by the Reporting Web site must be specified in the web.config file.

 

During installation, users are required to enter the SQL server and database accessed by the Reporting Web site.  The SQL connection string that was entered is shown here.  The connection string can be modified from the SiteAudit Viewer using the Web Site Database Configuration dialog.

 

 

The following screenshot shows the authentication settings for the Reporting Web site.

 

 

 Managing the Report Folders

The Reporting Web site folder structure shown below in the left panel is defined in the Web.sitemap file located in the root of the Reporting Web site installation folder.  This file is referred to as the sitemap file. 

Note that the report folders shown in the browser have spaces in their names, but the actual folders that exist in the virtual directory do not contain spaces in the name.  The folder display names and URLs are defined in the Web.sitemap file explained in the next section.

 

The actual folder structure in the Web site application is shown below.  Note that the folder structure appears the same as it does in the browser; however, if you take a close look you will notice that there are no spaces in the folder names in IIS.  Spaces are not permitted in the actual folder names, but the display name shown in the browser can have spaces or be named entirely different than the folder name. 

Securing Reporting Web Site Folders

By default, all users who have access to the Reporting Web site can see all folders and reports that exist. It is possible to limit access to the Reporting Web site folders to specific users and deny access to others. Folders are invisible to users who are denied access to them and visible to those who are permitted access. The folder security is handled in the web.config file located in the root folder of the Reporting Web site.

 

There is a section in the web.config called “location.”  This is where the administrator can define the path  (the RWS folder) that requires special access privileges.  A common technique is to create groups and assign users to the specific groups. Then allow or deny folder access to one or more groups. It is acceptable to allow or deny folder access to individuals as well.

 

In the example below, only users in the specified group will see the Inventory folder in the Reporting Web site.  It will be hidden for all other users.  Additionally, one can define specific users in the group who can access to the folder.  An example user is:  domain/username

 

<location path="MyReports/Inventory">

    <system.web>

        <authorization>

            <allow roles="RWSInventoryUsers" />

         </authorization>

   </system.web>

</location>

 

In the above example, the RWSInventoryUsers group contains the list of users who are permitted to view reports in the MyReports/Inventory folder.  The Inventory folder will be hidden for all users who are not a member of the RWSInventoryUsers group.

 

This Microsoft KB article provides additional details for securing website folders http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316871

Site Map Folder Specification

The sitemap identifies the folder structure and folder names displayed on the Reporting Web site.  The following data is contained in the Web.sitemap file installed in the root folder of the Reporting Web site.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<siteMap xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/AspNet/SiteMap-File-1.0" >
  <siteMapNode url="Default.aspx" title="Reporting Web site"  description="The Reporting Web site root folder" >
    <siteMapNode url="MyReports/Default.aspx" title="My Reports"  description="Contains sample reports" >
      <siteMapNode url="MyReports/AssessmentDetails/Default.aspx" title="Assessment Details"  description="Sample Assessment Detail reports" />
      <siteMapNode url="MyReports/Consumables/Default.aspx" title="Consumables"  description="Sample Consumables reports" />
      <siteMapNode url="MyReports/HostAnalysis/Default.aspx" title="Host Analysis"  description="Sample Host Analysis reports" />
      <siteMapNode url="MyReports/IncidentHistory/Default.aspx" title="Incident History"  description="Sample Incident History reports" />
      <siteMapNode url="MyReports/Inventory/Default.aspx" title="Inventory"  description="Sample Inventory reports" />
      <siteMapNode url="MyReports/JobAnalysis/Default.aspx" title="Job Analysis"  description="Sample Job Analysis reports" />
      <siteMapNode url="MyReports/LifetimeCounters/Default.aspx" title="Lifetime Counters"  description="Sample Lifetime Counters reports" />
      <siteMapNode url="MyReports/ProblemAnalysis/Default.aspx" title="Problem Analysis"  description="Sample Problem Analysis reports" />
      <siteMapNode url="MyReports/SLAAnalysis/Default.aspx" title="SLA Analysis"  description="Sample Service Level Agreement reports" />
      <siteMapNode url="MyReports/VolumeAnalysis/Default.aspx" title="Volume Analysis"  description="Sample Volume Analysis reports" />
    </siteMapNode>
  </siteMapNode>
</siteMap>

The installed sitemap contains several folder definitions and SiteAudit installs sample views in each folder which can be opened from the Reporting Web site.  Users can publish their own views to the Reporting Web site but may desire a new folder to place the views.  New folders can be defined in the sitemap and the IIS administrator must create the actual folder in the Reporting Web site virtual directory.  Once a folder has been created, users can publish as many views to the folder as desired. 

To create a folder in the sitemap, simply add additional siteMapNode elements in the location where the new folder should exist.  Three properties must be filled in for each report folder node: url, title, and description.  These are described below. 

URL 

The url property contains folder name and path, if the folder is a child of other folders.  All url properties must end with the Default.aspx page.  For example, suppose you want a folder at the root named TEST.  The url value for this would be: TEST/Default.aspx.  If you want the TEST folder placed as a child of the Sample folder, the url value should be: Sample/TEST/Default.aspx.  It is important to note that spaces are not allowed in the url property.  When publishing a view to the Reporting Web site, it must be published to the folder specified here.  In this example, users should publish new views to the Sample/TEST folder,

Title

The title property value contains the folder name that is displayed in the browser.  Titles are permitted to contain spaces.  Users can enter any text for the title value however, it makes most sense to have the title match the URL folder name as closely as possible.  

Description

The description property allows the site administrator to enter a description for the folder.  This description will be displayed as a tooltip when users hover over the folder name on the Reporting Web site page.

Configuring Users

All users who access the Reporting Web site must be a member of the IIS_USR group.  It is possible that users can access the site when not a member of this group but may be limited to certain actions.  Therefore it is recommended to always enter users into the IIS_USR group.

Accessing Alternative SiteAudit Databases

During installation of the Reporting Web site, users may enter the SQL server and database information.  This information is known as the database connection string.  The database connection string allows the Reporting Web site to access a SiteAudit database to create reports. 

It may be desirable to change which SQL server or database is accessed.  Regardless which SQL server and database is selected, the folder structure on the Reporting Web site does not change.  However, the content inside each report will change because the data is obtained from a different database. 

To access a different database, create a new connection string using the Web Site Database Configuration dialog launched from the SiteAudit Viewer Setup menu.  This dialog is identical to what is presented in the SiteAudit installer. 

 

Change the SQL server, database, or credentials as desired. 

 

 

Troubleshooting
The following section contains some common issues administrators may encounter when setting up the Reporting Web site. 

Configure User Access
All users who will access the Reporting Web site must be a member of the IIS_USR group.  It is possible that users can access the site when not a member of this group but may be limited in what actions are permissible.  Therefore it is recommended to always enter users into the IIS_USR group. 

Access to Path Denied 
If the Access to path denied error occurs when viewing a report, enable Intranet settings in Internet Explorer.  This can be done by disabling the property, Enable protected mode, under the Advanced Internet Options.  

Using Alternative Credentials
Internet Explorer contains an advanced setting to always prompt users for credentials even if the user is logged into the machine using a domain account.  To disable the prompt for domain users, disable Always Prompt in the advanced settings.  Domain users will not be required to enter credentials when logging into the Reporting Web site.  

It may be the case that a different user must log onto the Reporting Web site from a machine where a domain user has logged in.  Enable the Always Prompt property so that the user can enter the appropriate credentials.