Reporting
Reporting gathers what Overseer knows about your computers into read-only reports. This page lists the reports, shows how to shape and export them, and explains how reports differ from the Dashboard.
What reporting is for
Reporting answers questions about many computers at once. It tells you which computers a client has, where a piece of software is installed and which computers are still waiting for updates.
Every report is read-only. Opening, filtering or exporting a report never changes a computer, a deployment or a session. That makes reports safe to give to people who need to see the state of things without being able to act on it.
Reports are found under Reporting in the top navigation.
The reports
| Report | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Computers | Every computer Overseer manages, with the columns you choose |
| Computer Software | The software detected on your computers |
| Pending Updates | The updates computers are still waiting for |
| Windows OS Lifecycles | The Windows versions your computers run, set against their lifecycle |
| Compliance | How computers stand against what their deployments declare |
Reporting also shows the latest inventory results for your computers. Inventory is collected by scripts that run on their own schedules, and the report reads the most recent result for each computer.
Shaping a report
Each report opens as a table that you can arrange to suit the question.
- Choose columns. Pick which columns the report shows, so it carries only what you need.
- Search. Type in the search box to narrow the rows.
- Group. In reports that support it, group the rows by a column. Grouping the software report by software name, for example, gathers every computer that has it under one heading.
Like most screens, a report reads either one client or every client. The same report shows different rows depending on which you are looking at.
Exporting
Every report can be exported, so you can work with the data elsewhere or hand it to a client.
Exporting is limited to people whose role allows it. A person who can read a report cannot necessarily take a copy of it away.
Who uses each computer
Overseer keeps track of who uses each computer. It records the user of each computer at regular intervals and keeps a short rolling list of recent users. The computer's primary user is then linked to the matching person in Overseer.
Knowing the primary user is what connects a person to the computer they work on.
Reports and the Dashboard
The Dashboard and the reports do different jobs.
- The Dashboard shows what Overseer has been doing. It gives the fleet overview, the counters and the results of sessions.
- The reports show what is true of your computers. They cover what the computers are, what is installed on them and what they are waiting for.
Use the Dashboard to see how maintenance is going. Use a report when you need a list you can filter, group and export.