reporting

There are quite a few articles out there to setup and configure App-V 5 and the Reporting server along side SQL Server Reporting Services.

See this list on howto get started;

About App-V 5.0 Reporting

App-V 5.0 Reporting Setup and Query

App-V 5.0 Client Reporting – Client Setup

App-V 5.0 Reporting Server – missing prerequisites

General SQL Server Reporting Services installation tutorial;

Install Reporting Services

All of the above deals with getting the server up and running, the client to send data and to ensure that this is properly processed into the database.

I have spotted one query against the database on – which shows some basic information about application usage using SQL Management Studio.

Where are the reports? Well – SQL Server Reporting Services isn’t very friendly for a novice and to get started might be very daunting. So, here is a starting point! Use the above information to get started – have a server setup and a client (or more) reporting in.

To reach the home-page of SSRSS browse to;
http://<yourserver>/Reports/Pages/folder.aspx

This will present the homepage of the SSRS

As you can see I have multiple reports setup and ready to go. Lets get you started!

1. Click New Data Source

2. Setup the new connection. Most likely it will look something like this in a small lab environment.

Fields are as follows;

Name; AppVReports

Connection String; Data Source=localhost;Initial Catalog=AppVReporting

AppVReporting is the default database-name for the App-V Report database. Localhost should match your SQL Server hostname. Set Windows Security to use your own windows credentials to authenticate (or the user who access the reports). Click Test Connection to test the connection. Once all is set and done – click OK!

3. Download and upload the report

Download the report Application Usage for user.

Select the upload-file;

Locate the downloaded file and upload it into the SSRS repository.

4. Edit the report to fit your environment

Press the menu for the report and and select Edit in Report Builder

5. Edit the Data Source

You can choose to delete the Data Source, or edit the existing one. In the end – you should point to the previously created Data Source.

If you select Add Data Source the menu looks like this;

As you can see – the previous created Data Source is visible in the list.

Click OK to finalize. Select Save and close the Report Builder.

6. Click the Application Usage for user

7. Enter the user you are interested in to display the report.

For example MYDOMAIN\username. Click View Report.

8. Voila!

Tim Mangan has made some reports available on his site, TMUrgent. Check them out!

2014-05-06 – Microsoft made additional reports available!

App-V 5 provided the option to separate the reporting that the App-V Client enables from both SCCM and App-V Management server, and it even makes it possible to use with a standalone deployment using Powershell and MSI.

I will not provide a guide on howto setup the server components, it’s a separate topic and shouldn’t be to complex. However, configuring the client can be a bit tricky, at the same time it is very easy to verify that it is setup properly.

Configure it through Powershell;

After you have imported the App-V Client Powershell module;

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
Import-Module AppVClient

You can access the current configuration of the App-V Client;

Get-AppVClientConfiguration

You can see that per default – all configuration relating to reporting is blank. Use the below command-line to setup the functionality;

Set-AppvClientConfiguration -ReportingEnabled 1 -ReportingServerURL urlforyourserver -ReportingStartTime 0 -ReportingRandomDelay 10 -ReportingInterval 1

The above will enable reporting at 00:00 with a 10 minute randomized interval to not overload the server and update the server every 1 day. The server-url is as provided for –ReportingServerUrl (urlforyourserver).

This will actually setup a Scheduled task – which you can easily verify (apart from getting the set configuration using the Powershell example above);

I assume that you can tweak the time-intervals on your own.

This is quite easy and is very well documented at Technet.

You can also use Group Policy to provide the above configuration; ADMX-template

App-V 5 and your first SQL Server Report

App-V 5 Client Reporting–Client Setup