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Installing Express 6.2 Web Reports
Technical Note 1579
Last Reviewed 16-Sep-2002

Applies To
Express Software Manager version 6.2

Summary
Express Software Manager 6.2 includes several web reports that are viewable via Internet Explorer. This technical note describes how to install and configure the Express Software Manager 6.2 web reports on a computer that is running IIS on Windows NT 4.0, 2000, or XP.

Web reports use ASP (active server pages) to access Express data and to build pages for viewing in the browser. As a result, web reports must be installed on a machine running IIS. Web reports take advantage of Internet Explorer-specific functionality that is provided in IE 5.0 and above.

Express Software Manager 6.2 Web Reports
Requirements for Running Web Reports
In order to run web reports, you must have the following:

  • Web server— Microsoft IIS version 4.0 or greater.

  • Web Client— Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or greater.

  • Client hardware (recommended) Client— 500 MHz processor or greater, 256 MB RAM or greater.

Installing Web Reports
In order to use Express web reports you have to do the following:

  1. Copy the web reports files to a location that is accessible to IIS or Personal Web Server 4.0.

  2. Configure web reports with connection information for your site (your database server and database).

  3. Provide access to web reports.

Step 1: Copying Web Reports to an IIS-accessible Location
When you install Express Administrative Console, a folder called WebReports is created in the Express Console folder. The WebReports folder contains all the files necessary to run web reports. Copy the entire WebReports folder (including sub-folders) to a location that is accessible to IIS.

To do this without changing any IIS configuration, simply copy the entire contents of the WebReports folder to the web server’s default home folder (root directory).

For example, the IIS default home folder is C:\Inetpub\wwwroot, so you would copy the WebReports folder to C:\Inetpub\wwwroot.

An alternative approach would be to configure IIS with a new default home folder, using the WebReports folder as that default.

Step 2: Configuring Web Reports Connection Information
Express web reports use a file called cs.asp to store database connection information. Modify the cs.asp file so that it contains connection information appropriate to your site. In particular you need to specify the name of your database server, your database name (if not the default), the login information for that database, and a description of the connection.

Note: If you are using the default Express database as configured by the Express Software Manager Setup program, you only need to make three changes to the cs.asp file; the name of your database server, the password, and a description of the connection.

The cs.asp file has an array called CONNECTIONS that holds the connection information for one or more databases.

The CONNECTIONS array contains 5 values:

  • SQL Server name—This is the name of the computer on which the database resides. Change this from the default of “SQLSERVER” to the actual name of your database server.

  • Database name—This is the name of the database to which you are connecting. By default this is set to “Express”. If you are using the default Express database you do not have to change this. If you are using a database with a different name, you should change this value to match the name of your actual database.

  • Username—This is the user name required to connect to your database. The default Username is “sa”. If you are using the default Express database, you do not need to change this. If you are using a database that was not created by the Express install program you may need to change this.

  • Password—This is the password needed to connect to your database. The default is an empty string. Change this to the password you entered when you installed Express, or get the correct password from your database administrator.

  • Descriptive string—This is a description of the connection being made. The description appears on the status bar of Internet Explorer when you are selecting web reports and can help to verify that you are running the correct reports. Change the description to reflect the database and SQL Server name you are using.

Step 3: Providing Access to Web Reports
Accessing Web Reports From Express Reports Console
You can access web reports directly from Express Reports Console. To do this you must first configure web reports in Express Administrative Console.

To configure web reports in Express Administrative Console 6.2, after you have completed Steps 1 and 2 above:

    1. On the Reporting menu of Express Administrative Console, click Configure Web Reports.

    2. Enter a link to the webreports.asp file in the Configure Web Reports dialog box and click OK. Note: There is no error checking in this dialog box, so you are allowed to enter a link that is not valid. If you do so, web reports will not run from Express Reports Console.

    3. Start Express Reports Console. A Web Reports icon appears at the bottom of the list of reports.

      If you have not configured web reports (by entering a link on the Configure Web Reports dialog), this icon will have a red X through it. After you configure web reports the red ‘X’ no longer appears and you can double-click on the icon to launch web reports.

Alternative Methods of Accessing Web Reports
If you already have a web site and are adding web reports to that site, the easiest way to provide access is to create navigation to the webreports.asp page. This is the starting page for web reports.

You can also provide a direct link to web reports by emailing a link to webreports.asp. For example, if you copied the WebReports folder to the default home folder of the web server, you would send this link (substitute the name of your web server for “<your web server>”):

    Http://<your web server>/WebReports/webreports.asp
A third alternative would be to configure IIS so that web reports is the default page that appeared when someone accessed that web server.

Finding the Web Server’s Default Home Folder (Directory)

  1. Open Control Panel from the Start menu, then open Administrative Tools.

  2. Open Internet Services Manager by double-clicking on the entry titled Internet Services Manager.

  3. Expand the listing for the computer on which you will run web reports.

  4. Select the Default Web Site entry and right-click on it and choose Properties from the context-sensitive menu.

  5. On the Home Directory tab of the Default Web Site Properties dialog box find the Local Path entry. By default the home directory is C:\InetPub\wwwroot. You can check for the existence of this folder using Windows Explorer.

Note: If you do not have an Administrative Tools entry called Internet Services Manager, you may not have IIS installed and running. IIS is not installed on Windows 2000 Professional edition by default.

To determine if IIS is installed and running:

Open Internet Explorer and enter the following in the Address field:

    http://localhost/iishelp/
Press Enter. If IIS is running, this will bring up the IIS documentation.

Related Technical Notes
1584 Installing Express 6.1 Web Reports
9989 Express Software Manager 6.x Technical Notes