Configuring email reports

BMC Defender Server provides a substantial reporting facility with many features and functions suitable for use by analysts and auditors. A complete discussion of the reporting facility is provided in BMC-Defender-Server-reporting.

One of the easiest and most useful types of reports to create is an E-Mail report. This type of report mails users a short list of messages, of the operator's selection, each day at midnight. In addition to providing an easy way of reviewing pertinent activity, this also demonstrates to auditors that BMC Defender Server is well integrated into the enterprise.

At a minimum, the BMC Defender Server internal events thread should be mailed to the BMC Defender Server administrator. This report lists changes to BMC Defender Server by users, records significant internal events and anomalies, and verifies that BMC Defender Server is running properly. Configuring this particular E-Mail report is accomplished as follows:

1. Log on to the BMC Defender Server system and click the Reports > E-Mail tab at the top of the screen. This displays a list of all configured E-Mail reports on the system. (Initially there is no E-Mail reports configured.)
2. To add a new E-Mail report, click AddNew . This displays the Add New E-Mail Report dialog.
3. On the Add New E-Mail Report dialog, select BMC Defender internal events as the Report Data Source. (You can select any configured thread as the data source through the Report Data Source drop-down menu.)
4. On the Add New E-Mail Report dialog, provide an e-mail subject, such as BMC Defender internal events.
5. On the Add New E-Mail Report dialog, provide a valid e-mail address of the user that receives the daily report.
6. You can accept the remaining defaults of the screen to generate a report of under 500 messages each day, reporting on the previous day's messages. Click Save to save the settings. The new report appears on the top-level Reports > E-Mail screen.

To test the report, you can click Run Report at the upper right corner of the screen. This causes the report to be immediately generated and e-mailed to all specified users. (SMTP server settings should first be configured for e-mail reports to work, as discussed in a previous section.) Additionally, clicking the E-Mail subject line on the top-level screen displays the report contents, or any errors that occurred during the generation of the e-mail report.