Custom Reporting For SQL Monitor - Are You Interested

EdCarden

Currently there is no proper DDF or similar tool in SQL Monitor that users can turn to meet custom reporting needs. There are a handful of queries floating around as well as some SSRS Reports but in general there is no set of general purpose tools for custom reporting, not even a partially completed Data dictionary. I have proposed (in a separate thread in the older SQL Monitor 2.3 forum) that Red-gate consider putting together a set of base views that like their table counterparts can be combined together to produce rich data sets for the purposes of custom reporting independent of what reporting solution you use be it SSRS, Crystal Reports, Excel or any of several popular reporting software solutions.

The issue isn’t that there’s no reporting tool a customer can use but that there’s no base objects that can be used to feed a custom report. All of the solutions I’ve seen mentioned in various threads are designed for specific reporting needs and therefore not flexible. What I am proposing/asking of Red-Gate, is a set of base tools that can be used for custom reporting. The simplest and most flexible of choices to meet this need would be views. They are easily updated (to accommodate future changes in SQL Monitor) and do not require that any changes be made to the source data nor to the way the product works. They also make it possible for the customer to use whatever reporting software solution they want.

If this sounds like something you would be interest in then please post a reply in this thread and make Red-Gate aware of your custom reporting interests.


Thanks

ecarden

James B

Thanks for your post- I'm not personally aware of changes planned in this area as yet, however a better place for it to be suggested would be our uservoice suggestions forum: https://sqlmonitor.uservoice.com/forums/91743-suggestions

- other users can vote for this idea then.

DavidBick

I'd like to add my thanks for the suggestion. It's something we've talked about internally a few times, and I agree that a set of versioned base views is the most pragmatic way to open up the reporting. We'd provide documentation and examples, and do our best to defend the views through schema changes.

Getting it done is a balance against the other requests we've received, so I'd echo James' suggestion that you add it to our UserVoice site. Feel free to encourage others on the forums to add their votes too.

David.

Product Manager for SQL Monitor

EdCarden

james.billings wrote:

Thanks for your post- I'm not personally aware of changes planned in this area as yet, however a better place for it to be suggested would be our uservoice suggestions forum: https://sqlmonitor.uservoice.com/forums/91743-suggestions

- other users can vote for this idea then.

Done. I do hope someone with the power to do something takes this suggestion seriously because once users decide to stop waiting on the vendor to take action and decide to do something themselves the vendor loses the ability to manage the process. Too often software vendors underestimate the importance of reporting, particularly custom reporting. I do hope RG doesn't do the same.

JoeGT

Can I ask the RedGate people who might be watching this thread if this one has gone anywhere.

Ie. is there any planned working on a reporting module for the rich data that is being collected by the Base Monitor that is not driven by having to use the UI ?


I have reporting requirements to look at various performance and capacity metrics on the SQL hosts/instances that I look after and while I can cobble something together using various bespoke tools or even get hold of another 3rd party reporting tool that might achieve my needs, I would prefer to be able to use some of the data that SQL Monitor gathers to achieve my needs.

DavidBick

I'm sorry that we've not made any real progress on this since I posted last. I'd love to say it's firmly on the road-map, but the truth is I'm struggling to prioritise it over other work. If you look through our UserVoice suggestions you'll see it hasn't yet attracted much interest, at least compared to some other ideas:
http://sqlmonitor.uservoice.com/forums/ ... ilters/top
http://sqlmonitor.uservoice.com/forums/ ... -reporting

The suggestions list isn't the only thing we use to choose which features to implement, but I don't think we're likely to work on this issue in the first half of this year.

One of our developers wrote an article recently explaining a bit about the schema. I know that's a long way short of what you'd like to see, but hope that it might be useful:
https://www.simple-talk.com/blogs/2013/ ... ta-part-1/

David.

Product Manager for SQL Monitor