Working with Favorites

Overview

SAS IT Resource Management reports have expiration dates that specify if a report should be overwritten when the associated report job is run within a given time frame. This prevents the SAS Content Server from storing too many reports over time.

The Favorites pane enables you to save a copy of a report if you do not want to lose the data when the report is overwritten. You can copy reports from one or more galleries and save the copies indefinitely in Favorites folders until you delete the copies manually. You might use Favorites to copy and save reports that show unique data trends, information that you want to refer to later, remarkable data points, or information that you want to save and e-mail to others.

In the Favorites pane, you can perform the following tasks:

Create Favorites folders.
Copy reports from the Gallery pane into a Favorites folder.
Navigate and open Favorites folders to view your favorite reports in the Gallery pane.
Manage Favorites folders and reports.
E-mail your favorite reports.

The report copies that you save in Favorites folders are stored in a user-specific location of the SAS Content Server and are not updated when the associated report jobs run again. You can view these reports in the Gallery pane.

In the following image, the Favorites folder HighUsageCriticalServersOct2010 is open in the Gallery pane and the three reports in that folder are displayed:

A Favorites Folder in the Gallery Pane

Create a Favorites Folder

Each report in the Favorites pane must be stored in a Favorites folder. Thus, you must create one or more Favorites folders before you can copy a report into the Favorites pane. The Action button in the Favorites pane enables you to perform this task.

Your Favorites folders and reports are saved for your user ID in user-specific folders on the SAS Content Server. You can use the E-mail Reports action to share these reports with others.

For best results, create a set of Favorites folders that clearly identifies the notable attributes of the reports that they store. For example, a Favorites folder titled HighUsageCriticalServersOct2010 might be used to keep notable reports that show high usage on critical servers within your enterprise during the month of October 2010.

To create a favorite folder, perform the following steps:

In the Favorites pane, click the arrow next to the Action button and select New Folder to display the New Favorites Folder dialog box.

The New Favorites Folder dialog box appears.

New Favorites Folder Dialog Box
In the Name field, enter a unique name for the folder. The name of a Favorites folder is limited to 50 characters and cannot include spaces or the special characters / \ * : or ".
(Optional) In the Description field, enter a description of the folder.
Click Save to create the new folder or Cancel to close the dialog box.

Copy a Report to a Favorite Folder

To copy a report to a Favorites folder, perform the following steps:

In the Browse or Gallery pane, locate and open the gallery that includes the report that you want to copy and save as a favorite.
In the Favorites pane, select the Favorites folder where you want to save the report.
In the Gallery pane, select the report that you want to copy and save to your Favorites folder.
- In the Table view, click a report to select it. To select multiple reports at one time, hold down the CTRL or SHIFT key and click multiple reports.
  
  Tip
  You can drag and drop reports from the Table view to a Favorites folder and skip the remaining steps.
- In the Thumbnail view, click a report to select it.
- In the Flow view, position a report to the center of the Gallery pane to select it.
Note: Gallery Manager enables you to select and copy no more than 40 reports at one time.
In the Gallery pane, click the arrow next to the Action button and select Copy to Favorites. The selected report or reports are added to the Favorites folder that you selected.

View Reports in a Favorites Folder

To view the reports in a Favorites folder, perform the following steps:

In the Favorites pane, select a Favorites folder.
Click the arrow next to a Favorites folder to expand the folder and view a list of the reports that it contains.
Click a report in the Favorites pane to view a thumbnail of the report. The following image shows a thumbnail of the Workload CPU Mips report in the Favorites folder HighUsageCriticalServersOct2010.

Thumbnail Image of a Report in a Favorites Folder
Double-click the report icon () in the Favorites pane to view a large version of the report in a separate browser window.

Tip

To see Favorites reports in the Gallery pane, select a Favorites folder, click the arrow next to the Action button in the Favorites pane, and then select Open. You can use the View icons in the Gallery pane to view the reports in the format that you prefer.

Modify a Favorite Folder

You can modify any of the Favorites folders that you create. To modify a Favorites folder, perform the following steps:

In the Favorites pane, select the Favorites folder that you want to modify.
In the Favorites pane, click the arrow next to the Action button and select Modify. The Edit Favorites Folder dialog box appears.

Edit Favorites Folder Dialog Box
Modify the name and description of the Favorites folder as needed. The name of a Favorites folder is limited to 50 characters and cannot include spaces or the special characters / \ * : or ".
Click Save to save your changes or Cancel to close the dialog box.

Delete Favorites Folders or Reports

You can delete a Favorites folder to remove it and its contents from the Gallery Manager. You can also delete an individual report from a Favorites folder. However, these actions do not delete the original reports from the SAS Content Server because the reports in Favorites folders are copies.

To delete Favorites folders or reports, perform the following steps:

Select one or more Favorites folders or reports that you want to delete. You can hold down the CTRL or SHIFT key and select multiple items in the Favorites pane.
In the Favorites pane, click the arrow next to the Action button and select Delete.

Note: You can select Delete All to delete all the Favorites folders and reports in the Favorites pane.
Click Yes to confirm that you want to delete.

E-mail Reports

Gallery Manager enables you to e-mail reports that are stored in a Favorites folder. This enables you to share interesting or notable reports with other colleagues for evaluation, analysis, or review.

The e-mails that Gallery Manager generates include links to the selected report copies that are saved on the SAS Content Server. Therefore, the option to send reports via e-mail is successful only when sharing reports with other individuals within your enterprise that have network permissions to access the SAS Content Server.

Note: You must have a default mail client configured on your client machine to perform this action.

To e-mail a report that is in a Favorites folder, perform the following steps:

In the Favorites pane, select one or more reports that you want to e-mail.

Note: Gallery Manager does not enable you to send a Favorites folder. If you want to send all of the reports in a Favorites folder, you must select all of the reports in the folder manually.
In the Favorites pane, click the arrow next to the Action button and select E-mail Reports. Your e-mail client opens a new message. In the body of the message, the e-mail includes links to the SAS Content Server location where the reports are saved.

Note: The links in the e-mail point to the report copies that were created when you saved the reports as favorites. Thus, similar to all reports in Favorites folders, the linked reports are not updated if the corresponding report jobs are run again.
In the To field of the new e-mail message, enter the e-mail addresses of the people to whom you are sending the reports.

The following example is an e-mail that Gallery Manager created for a favorite report.

Sample E-mail with a Link to a Favorite Report
Click Send.

Note: E-mail clients might not be able to handle very large content. If you try to e-mail ten or more reports at once, then a message appears with instructions to reduce the number of selected reports. If you want to send more reports, then you must send multiple e-mails of fewer than ten reports each.