Overview

With the release of Nintex Reporting 2008 it's time to revisit business and technical requirements as they related to reporting, and then understand the nature and intentions of what this solution is focused on.  One of the great things you notice right off is the six roll based dashboards.  Let's put the power of BI in the hands of an administrator with the roles where we can all work in a structured way.  Here in this post we'll drill down slightly into what IT Pros or SharePoint Administrators will care about, but this product should also be looked at from the business such as CEO, to portal administrator, marketing and so on.  The nature of reporting is everyone needs it.  Reporting data provides insight and can you put a price on that insight?  Because it was designed and architected for SharePoint, this isn't just another web usage analysis platform that stops with what you could get out of the IIS logs.  For a typical WebTrends or Google Analytics or other javascript page element, you'll see the difference in where one stops and the other begins.  As well, if you're waiting for Microsoft's answer, you may be waiting for a long time.  The solution accelerator designed on assessment and discovery provides some basic reporting and requires SQL Reporting services, but will only gather what can be retrieved from remotely through web services.  I do think the SharePoint Assessment tool from the solution accelerator team will be great for helping you locate rogue deployments, but this solution, Nintex Reporting 2008 will help you get detailed reports on what it is doing.  The focus is truly different.  Nintex Reporting is an extensible platform for all things SharePoint Reporting and if it's not in the box, and there's a way to get it, don't over simplify reporting to just usage. 

First let's discuss the Nintex key design principals and focus as it relates to administration.  1) Simple to install, 2) easy to use, 3) does the right thing by default, 4) rich and interactive without performance impact.  Near real time reporting up to most recent capture (5 min default).  5) Works with Native SharePoint and doesn't require unnecessary server infrastructure.  From small to large to scaled out multi node farms scale and extensibility is the design.  The performance focused reports have capability for offloading report building and compilation making it fast for rendering and doesn't make you wait.

Key Insights

One of the challenges of SharePoint Administration is getting the insight you need to know what is going on with your server.  There are just so many logs and places you have to go to gain the knowledge that you need to properly manage your SharePoint infrastructure.

As an administrator, the IIS logs, the SharePoint logs, the Performance logs, ULS logs, Worker Process logs and so on are all needed at times to help you really get a handle on what's going on with your servers and to troubleshoot (note I didn't say easily troubleshoot 'cause it's not.)  Before Nintex Reporting 2008, there was no structured way to view and report on these various means for managing your SharePoint Infrastructure.  This first release of Nintex Reporting 2008 builds on a set of collectors.  This release includes two foundational key collectors a SharePoint collector and a performance collector.

The SharePoint Collector gathers data across the platform from data in lists like file types and sizes, to list types, templates, usage, modified dates, workflows, quotas, site collections and on and on... 

The Performance Collector allows you to gather WMI performance counters such as {replace with list} CPU, Memory, % Disk Available.

These collectors gather data periodically throughout the day in intervals that you can configure (default is every 5 minutes) and stores it in a scalable data warehouse for quick retrieval thus allowing you to see reports virtually real time, but by default the reports and by default are set to compile automatically.  The results are then retrieved from these cached reports to streamline the process and reduce wait time.  This model supports existing performance requirements without forcing you to invest in expensive hardware to run an additional service, unless that's what you need.

Rich Reporting

With the reports designed in Microsoft Silverlight, the interactivity is cutting edge with incredibly rich visualizations and drill down capabilities.

Some sample reports that you can see right out of the box are...

• Site Activity
• List and Document Growth over time
• Downloads by document
• Site Collection Sizing
• Active Users
• Users over time
• User Report
• Search Reports
• Content Database

Example Reports you might want to view daily

• Largest Lists
• Search and Keywords Reports
• Summary Report - includes...

Key Metrics made easy to Track and Trend

• # of Documents
• Average Unique Users over time (by day)
• Files by Type
• Memory Usage
• Disk Usage
• CPU Usage

Customized reports

Usually when someone mentions custom, it requires one to pull out code or learn a new product.  This easy to use web UI for creating reports can be used to create reports never conceived by the original creators.  The combinations of the data that's being collected in a scalable SQL data warehouse which can be fronted by any number of tools such as SQL Reporting Services or SQL Analysis Services.  Looking to expose this data?  Use the out of the box reporting web parts easily added to any site, or leverage KPIs and thresholds.

Server Footprint

Whenever there is an install on the server there's always a question about overhead.  The SharePoint collector is a small incremental overhead that is usage based.  With the ability to control gather frequency and throttle the counters or objects and gathered.  Report compilation can happen locally or on an offloaded SQL server. 

Resources

Let me leave you with some key resources and special deal... (Each resource with copy from the site to save you the time.)

Schedule a Nintex Reporting 2008 Demo

Scheduling a demonstration with Nintex allows you and/or your organisation to quickly evaluate how Nintex products bridge the gap to provide specific features currently not available with Microsoft technology to help your organisation become more productive and efficient.

Nintex will happily arrange a demonstration for one person or a group of IT users and/or business users in your organisation. The demonstration is not a general open public demonstration so we are happy to schedule it on a time and date of your preference, tailor the features overview to focus on your organisations problem, tailor presentation language to present to a technical and/or non technical audience plus you can ask as many questions during and after the demonstration. sales@nintex.com

Nintex Product Trial (Hosted)

To enable your Nintex product trial please supply the information requested in the following form. The trial version has an expiry date of 30 days.  The expiration countdown begins once the product trial has been provided.

Note:

Nintex Product Trial Confirmation

Thank you for your Nintex product trial request.
You have been emailed further information on your Nintex product trial at this address: joel.oleson@nintex.com
To obtain additional information regarding a licensed copy please contact sales@nintex.com

Here's the email I got in less than 1 second:

Dear Joel,
Thank you for your interest in Nintex Reporting 2008.
You will receive the URL of your Nintex Reporting 2008 host team-site, as well as your account and login details, shortly.
Please note your Nintex Reporting 2008 host team-site will expire on Tuesday, 8 July 2008.
If you have any technical questions, please contact our Support Team at support@nintex.com. For any sales related questions the Nintex Sales Team can be contacted at sales@nintex.com.
We will be in touch to see how your trial of Nintex Reporting 2008 is progressing and we trust that you will find this product a valuable addition to your company
Regards,

The Nintex Sales Team
NINTEX
Tel (Australia): +613 9606 9222
Tel (US): +1 425 452 3818
Email: sales@nintex.com

Discount

How did you find out about Nintex Products? Choose Other, then Specify "Joel Oleson" or "Joel's Blog."  When you purchase the product be sure to ask for Joel's 5% discount.  They'll be sure to treat you right. 

Quality

I know Nintex, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, but better yet, I know Brett Campbell and Brian Cook, and both of them have been working on SharePoint since the beginning.  They've even got a Tahoe (code name for SPS 2001) shirt on their wall in Melbourne in their headquarters.  They are some of the biggest SharePoint fans and friendliest guys you'll ever meet.  Brett is on the Partner Advisory Council and I've ran into Brian the CEO on both sides of the globe in Redmond at the SharePoint Conference and Barcelona, Spain and in as they were big sponsors at IT Forum.  They were sponsoring TechEd South East Asia 2008 even before I was signed up.  What' I'm saying is these guys are committed to quality, and to ensure their SharePoint customers find success.