DocumentationAEM 6.4Administering Guide

Reporting reporting

Last update: Wed May 03 2023 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

CREATED FOR:

  • Admin
CAUTION
AEM 6.4 has reached the end of extended support and this documentation is no longer updated. For further details, see our technical support periods. Find the supported versions here.

To help you monitor and analyze the state of your instance, AEM provides a selection of default reports, which can be configured for your individual requirements:

NOTE
These reports are only available in the Classic UI. For system monitoring and reporting in the modern UI, see the Operations Dashboard.

All reports can be accessed from the Tools console. Select Reports in the left-hand pane, then double-click the required report in the right-hand pane to open it for viewing and/or configuration.

New instances of a report can also be created from the Tools console. Select Reports in the left-hand pane, then New… from the toolbar. Define a Title and Name, select the report type you require, then click Create. Your new report instance will appear in the list. Double-click this to open, then drag a component from the sidekick to create the first column and start the report definition.

NOTE
In addition to the standard AEM reports that are available out of the box, you can develop your own (completely new) reports.

The Basics of Report Customization the-basics-of-report-customization

There are various formats of reports available. The following reports all use columns that can be customized as detailed in the following sections:

NOTE
The following reports each have their own format and customization:
  • Health Check uses selection fields to specify the data you want to report on.
  • Disk Usage uses links to drill down through the repository structure.
  • Workflow report gives an overview of the workflows running on your instance.
So the following procedures for column configuration are not appropriate. See the descriptions of the individual reports for their details.

Selecting and Positioning the Data Columns selecting-and-positioning-the-data-columns

Columns can be added to, repositioned on, or removed from any of the reports, either standard or customized.

The Components tab of the sidekick (available on the report page) lists all categories of data that can be selected as columns.

To change the data selection:

  • to add a new column, drag the required component from the sidekick and drop in the position you want

    • a green tick will indicate when the position is valid and a pair of arrows will indicate exactly where it will be placed
    • a red no-go symbol will indicate when the position is invalid

  • to move a column, click on the header, hold and drag to the new position

  • to remove a column, click on the column title, hold and drag up into the report header area (a red minus symbol will indicate that the position is not valid); release the mouse button and the Delete Component(s) dialog will request confirmation that you do really want to delete the column.

Column Drop-Down Menu column-drop-down-menu

Each column in the report has a drop-down menu. This becomes visible when your mouse cursor moves over the column title cell.

An arrow head will appear at the far right of the title cell (not to be confused with the arrow head immediately to the right of the title text that indicates the current sort mechanism).

reportcolumnsort

The options available on the menu will depend on the configuration of the column (as made during project development), any invalid options will be greyed out.

Sorting the Data sorting-the-data

The data can be sorted according to a specific column by either:

  • clicking on the appropriate column header; the sort will toggle between ascending and descending, indicated by an arrow head immediately next to the title text
  • use the column’s drop-down menu to specifically select either Sort Ascending or Sort Descending; again this will be indicated by an arrow head immediately next to the title text

Groups and the Current data Chart groups-and-the-current-data-chart

On appropriate columns you can select Group by this column from the column’s drop-down menu. This will group the data according to each distinct value within that column. You can select more than one column to be grouped. The option will be greyed out when the data in the column is inappropriate; i.e. every entry is distinct and unique so no groups can be formed, for example the User ID column of the user report.

After at least one column has been grouped a pie-chart of Current data will be generated, based on this grouping. If multiple columns are grouped then this will also be indicated on the chart.

reportuser

Moving your cursor over the pie-chart will show the aggregated value for the appropriate segment. This uses the aggregate currently defined for the column; for example, count, minimum, average, amongst others.

Filters and Aggregates filters-and-aggregates

On appropriate columns you can also configure Filter Settings and/or Aggregates from the column’s drop-down menu.

Filters filters

Filter Settings allow you to specify the criteria for entries to be displayed. The operators available are:

  • contains
  • equals

reportfilter

To set a filter:

  1. Select the operator that you want from the drop-down list.
  2. Enter the text to be filtered on.
  3. Click Apply.

To deactivate the filter:

  1. Remove the filter text.
  2. Click Apply.

Aggregates aggregates

You can also select an aggregation method (these may vary depending on the column selected):

reportaggregate

Column Properties column-properties

This option is only available when the Generic column has been used in the User Report.

Historic data historic-data

A chart of the change in your data over time can be seen under Historic data. This is derived from snapshots taken at regular intervals.

Data is:

  • Collected by, if available, the first sorted column, otherwise the first (non-grouped) column
  • Grouped by the appropriate column

The report can be generated:

  1. Set Grouping on the required column.

  2. Edit the configuration to define how often the snapshots should be made; hourly or daily.

  3. Finish… the definition to start the collection of snapshots.

    The red/green slider button at top left indicates when snapshots are being collected.

The resulting chart is shown at the bottom right:

reporttrends

Once data collection has started you can select:

  • Period

    You can select from and to dates for the report data to be shown.

  • Interval

    Month, Week, Day, Hour can be selected for the scale and aggregation of the report.

    For example, if daily snapshots are available for February 2011:

    • If the interval is set to Day, each snapshot is shown as a single value in the chart.
    • If the interval is set to Month, all snapshots for February are aggregated into a single value (displayed as a single “dot” in the chart).

Select your requirements, then click Go to apply them to the report. To update the display after further snapshots have been made, click Go again.

chlimage_1-62

When snapshots are being collected you can:

  • Use Finish… again to reinitialize the collection.

    Finish “freezes” the report’s structure (i.e. the columns assigned to the report and which are grouped, sorted, filtered, etc.) and starts taking snapshots.

  • Open the Edit dialog to select No data snapshots to terminate collection until required.

    Edit only switches the taking of snapshots on or off. If taking snapshots is switched on again, it uses the state of the report when it was last finished for taking further snapshots.

NOTE
Snapshots are stored under /var/reports/... where the remainder of the path mirrors the path of the respective report and ID created when the report was finished.
Old snapshots can be manually purged, if you are completely sure that you no longer require those instances.
NOTE
The preconfigured reports are not performance intensive, but it is still recommended to use daily snapshots on a production environment. If possible run these daily snapshots at a time of day when there is not much activity on your website; this can be defined with the Daily snapshots (repconf.hourofday) parameter for Day CQ Reporting Configuration; see OSGI Configuration for more details on how to configure this.

Display Limits display-limits

The historical data report can also change slightly in appearance due to limits that can be set, according to the number of results for the period selected.

Each horizontal line is known as a series (and corresponds to an entry in the chart legend), each vertical column of dots represents the aggregated snapshots.

chlimage_1-63

To keep the chart clean over longer periods of time there are limits which can be set. For the standard reports these are:

  • horizontal series - both default and system maximum is 9

  • vertical aggregated snapshots - default is 35 (per horizontal series)

So when the (appropriate) limits are exceeded the:

  • the dots will not be displayed
  • the legend for the historical data chart might show a different number of entries to that of the current data chart

chlimage_1-64

Customized reports can also show the Total value for all series. This is shown as a series (horizontal line and entry in the legend).

NOTE
For customized reports the limits can be set differently.

Edit (Report) edit-report

The Edit button opens the Edit Report Dialog.

This is one location where the period for collecting snapshots for Historic data is defined, but various other settings can also be defined:

reportedit

  • Title

    You can define your own title.

  • Description

    You can define your own description.

  • Root path (only active for certain reports)

    Use this to limit the report to a (sub-) section of the repository.

  • Report Processing

    • automatically refresh data

      The report data will be refreshed every time you update the report definition.

    • manually refresh data

      This option can be used to prevent delays caused by automatic refresh operations when there is a large volume of data.

      Selecting this indicates that the report data must be manually refreshed when any aspect of the report configuration has changed. It also means that as soon as you change any aspect of the configuration the report table will be blanked out.

      When this is selected the Load data button will be displayed (next to Edit on the report). Load data will load the data and refresh the report data shown.

  • Snapshots
    You can define how often snapshots are to be made; daily, hourly or not at all.

Load data load-data

The Load data button is only visible when manually refresh data has been selected from Edit.

chlimage_1-65

Clicking on Load data will reload the data and update the report being shown.

Selecting to manually refresh data means that:

  1. As soon as you change the report configuration, the table of report data will be blanked out.

    For example, if you change the sort mechanism for a column, the data will not be shown.

  2. If you want the report data to be shown again you will need to click on Load data to reload the data.

Finish (report) finish-report

When you Finish the report:

  • The report definition as of that point in time will be used for taking the snapshots (afterwards you can continue working on a report definition as it is then separate from the snaphots).
  • Any existing snapshots will be removed.
  • New snapshots are collected for the Historic data.

With this dialog you can define, or update, your own title and description for the resulting report.

reportfinish

Report Types report-types

Component Report component-report

The component report delivers information about how your website uses the components.

Columns of information about:

  • Author
  • Component Path
  • Component Type
  • Last Modified
  • Page

Mean that you can see, for example:

  • Which components are used where.

    Useful, for example, when testing.

  • How instances of a specific component are distributed.

    This can be interesting if specific pages (i.e. “heavy pages”) are experiencing performance issues.

  • Identify parts of the site with frequent/less frequent changes.

  • See how page content develops over time.

All components are included, product-standard and project-specific. Using the Edit dialog the user can also set a Root path that defines the startpoint of the report - all components under that root are considered for the report.

reportcomponent reportcompentall

Disk Usage disk-usage

The disk usage report shows information about the data stored within your repository.

The report starts in the root ( / ) of the repository; by clicking on a particular branch you can drill down inside the repository (the current path will be reflected in the report title).

reportdiskusage

Health Check health-check

This report analyzes the current request log:

<cq-installation-dir>/crx-quickstart/logs/request.log
to help you identify the most expensive request(s) within a given period.

To generate the report you can specify:

  • Period (hours)

    The number of hours (past) to be analysed.

    Default: 24

  • max. Results

    Maximum number of output lines.

    Default: 50

  • max. Requests

    Maximum number of requests to be analysed.

    Default: -1 (all)

  • Email address

    Send results to an email address.

    Optional; Default: blank

  • Run daily at (hh:mm)

    Specify a time for the report to be automatically run on a daily basis.

    Optional; Default: blank

reporthealth

Page Activity Report page-activity-report

The page activity report lists pages and the actions made on them.

Columns of information about:

  • Page
  • Time
  • Type
  • User

Mean that you can monitor:

  • The latest modifications.
  • Authors working on specific pages.
  • Pages that have not been modified recently, so might be in need of action.
  • Pages that are most / least frequently changed.
  • Most / least active users.

The page activity report takes all its information from the audit log. By default the root path is configured to the audit log at /var/audit/com.day.cq.wcm.core.page.

reportpageactivity

User Generated Content Report user-generated-content-report

This report provides information about user generated content; be that comments, ratings or forums.

Columns of information on:

  • Date
  • IP Address
  • Page
  • Referrer
  • Type
  • User Identifier

Allow you to:

  • See which pages are receiving the most comments.
  • Get an overview of all comments that specific site visitors are leaving, maybe the issues are related.
  • Judge whether new content is provoking comments by monitoring when comments are being made on a page.

reportusercontent

User Report user-report

This report gives information about all users that have registered an account and/or profile; this can include both authors within your organization and external visitors.

Columns of information (where available) about:

  • Age
  • Country
  • Domain
  • E-Mail
  • Family Name
  • Gender
  • Generic
  • Given Name
  • Info
  • Interest
  • Language
  • NTLM Hashcode
  • User ID

Allow you to:

  • See the demographic spread of your users.
  • Report on customized fields you have added to the profiles.

reportusercanned

Generic Column generic-column

The Generic column is available in the User Report so that you can access customized information, usually from the user profiles; for example, Favorite Color as detailed under Adding Fields to the Profile Definition.

The Generic column dialog will open when you either:

  • Drag the Generic component from the sidekick to the report.
  • Select the Column Properties for an existing Generic column.

reportusrgenericcolm

From the Definitions tab you can define:

  • Title

    Your own title for the generic column.

  • Property

    The property name as stored in the repository, usually within the user’s profile.

  • Path

    Usually the property is taken from the profile.

  • Type

    Select the field type from String, Number, Integer, Date.

  • Default Aggregate

    This defines the aggregate used by default if the column is ungrouped in a report with at least one grouped column. Select the required aggregate from Count, Minimum, Average, Maximum, Sum.

    For example, Count for a String field means that the number of distinct String values is displayed for the column in the aggregated state.

In the Extended tab you can also define the aggregates and filters available:

reportusrgenericcolmextented

Workflow Instance Report workflow-instance-report

This gives you a concise overview, providing information about the individual instances of workflows, both running and completed.

Columns of information about:

  • Completed
  • Duration
  • Initiator
  • Model
  • Payload
  • Started
  • Status

Mean you can:

  • Monitor the mean duration of workflows; if this happens regularly it can highlight issues with the workflow.

reportworkflowintance

Workflow Report workflow-report

This provides key statistics about the workflows running on your instance.

reportworkflow

Using Reports in a Publish Environment using-reports-in-a-publish-environment

Once you have configured the reports to your specific requirements you can activate it to transfer the configuration to the publish environment.

CAUTION
If you want Historic data for the publish environment, then Finish the report on the author environment before activating the page.

The appropriate report will then be accessible under

/etc/reports

For example, the User Generated Content report can be found under:

http://localhost:4503/etc/reports/ugcreport.html

This will now report on data collected from the publish environment.

As no report configuration is allowed in the publish environment, the Edit and Finish buttons are not available. However, you can select the Period and Interval for the Historic data reports if snapshots are being collected.

reportsucgpublish

CAUTION
Access to these reports may be a security issue; therefore we recommend you configure the Dispatcher so that /etc/reports is not available to external visitors. See the Security Checklist for more details.

Permissions Needed for Running Reports permissions-needed-for-running-reports

The permissions needed depend on the action:

  • Report data is basically collected using the privileges of the current user.
  • Historic data is collected using the privileges of the user that finished the report.

In a standard AEM installation the following permissions are preset for the reports:

  • User Report

    user administrators - read and write

  • Page Activity Report

    contributors - read and write

  • Component Report

    contributors - read and write

  • User Generated Content Report

    contributors - read and write

  • Workflow Instance Report

    workflow-users - read and write

All members of the administrators group have the necessary rights to create new reports.

recommendation-more-help
5ce3024a-cbea-458b-8b2f-f9b8dda516e8