Planning Your Reports › How to Plan a Report

How to Plan a Report

Before you create a report, plan what to include in your report, how you want it to look, and the time period.

To plan a report, do the following:

1. Decide whether to use short-term or long-term data for your report. For short-term data, use records extracted from the current SMF file. For long-term data, use either the collected performance data records or the archived SMF data.
2. Decide whether to use one of the Report Writer sample (predefined) reports.
3. Decide what format you want for the report: tabular, plot, graph, or historical (flashback). The format determines the primary report command that you use.
4. Decide what information you want in the report, for which resources you want this information, and how you want the information ordered and formatted. For example, you might want to create a tabular report showing all transactions, in alphabetical order, how many times each transaction was used, and the average transaction lifetime. To select this information, you use variables, variable options, ID options, and identifiers.
5. Decide what type of data you want to examine and then supply that type of data to the program.

   Note: For detailed information about the type of data each record type contains, see the Administration Guide.

6. Decide how to tailor your report using secondary commands. Such commands can limit the period a report covers, group the resources included in the report, or assign the report a descriptive title.