Standards for SAS IT Resource Management Report Elements :: SAS(R) IT Resource Management 3.21: Reporting Guide, Second Edition

Titles

Many reports have the following two titles:

Title1 shows the report metrics.
Title2 provides information about the level of data that is being reported.

Note: The BY line and the axis of the report also help the report viewer to determine the level of data that is being reported.

The following figure provides an example of Title1 and Title2 in a SAS IT Resource Management report with a BY Line.

Titles and BY Line in a SAS IT Resource Management Report

The following table provides information about how Title2 standards map to the aggregation level for the report.

Job	Title2 Sample	Aggregation Level
Day Job	Intervals for the Day	Detail
	Hours for the Day	DayHour
	Hours for last 3 Days	DayHour
	Hours for last 7 Days	DayHour
	Shifts for the Day	DayShift
	For the Day	Day
Week Job	Daily Hours for the Week	DayHour
	Daily Peak Hours for the Week	DayHour
	Daily Shifts for the Week	DayShift
	Days for the Week	Day
	Days for last 4 Weeks	Day
	Weekly Hours for last 4 Weeks	WeekHour
	Weekly Hours for the Week	WeekHour
	By Shift and Week	WeekShift
	For the Week	Week
	By Week	Week
Month Job	Daily Hours for the Month	DayHour
	Daily Peak Hours for the Month	DayHour
	Daily Shifts for the Month	DayShift
	Days for the Month	Day
	Days for last 2 Months	Day
	Monthly Hours for the Month	MonthHour
	Monthly Hours for last 3 Months	MonthHour
	By Shift and Month	MonthShift
	For the Month	Month
	By Month	Month

Footnotes

Use a footnote to indicate that a filter was used to subset the report data. Here are some examples:

Server with high CpuBusyPctWMean for the day
Server with high CpuBusyPctWMean for the week
Server with high CpuBusyPctWMean for the month
Server with high CpuBusyPctWMean for one or more days
Servers with highest CpuBusyPctWMean for the day
Servers with highest CpuBusyPctWMean for one or more days

Use the following default as the second line of the footnote:

Generated on %TRIM(%QSYSFUNC(DATE(), NLDATE20.)) at %SYSFUNC(TIME(), NLTIMAP20.)

The following figure provides an example of a footnote in a SAS IT Resource Management report.

Footnote in a SAS IT Resource Management Report

Axis

To imitate the axis standards for SAS IT Resource Management reports, implement the following specifications:

Specify a generic axis label for reports that contain legends, when you are plotting multiple statistics, or when the default labels on the axis are ambiguous.
Turn off minor tick marks.
For reports with hour on the horizontal axis, use 0 to 23 by 1.
For reports with hour on the vertical axis, use 0 to 24 by 2.
For reports with time on the horizontal axis, use “00:00”t to “24:00”t by “02:00”t.
For reports with percentages on the vertical axis, use 0 to 100 by 20.

Colors

A template named ITRMDefault is used for default colors in SAS IT Resource Management reports. However, most reports do not require that colors be specified explicitly in the report task.

Most of the colors that are defined in the ITRMDefault template were selected from the autumn color scheme and from a set of the SAS Enterprise Guide window default colors.

If you want to specify a color in a report task, the following colors (in SAS Enterprise Guide) complement the colors in the ITRMDefault template:

blue gray
dark yellow
light orange
teal
pale blue
lavender
tan
gold
light yellow
lime
light green

Use black for needle plots that include a symbol for a standard deviation metric.

Group BY

Be consistent with the placement of BY variables in your reports. SAS IT Resource Management reports use the following order to place BY variables in reports:

date, if used
date-related ID columns such as DayOfWeek
other classification columns

Reference Lines

To imitate the reference line standards for SAS IT Resource Management reports, implement the following specifications:

Use reference lines when possible.
When plotting two metrics on the left and right axis, use a reference line for the most important metric that is plotted on the left vertical axis.
Use values 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 when using a reference line for a percent metric.
Do not specify values when using reference lines if you do not know the minimum and maximum values for the metric.
Use the style Dashed.
Use the color Gray - 25%.
Include a footnote about the reference if needed.

Fonts

SAS IT Resource Management reports use the default fonts for SAS Enterprise Guide.

Formats

SAS IT Resource Management reports use the default formats that are inherited from their aggregation tables or information maps.

Symbols

To imitate the symbols standards for SAS IT Resource Management reports, implement the following specifications:

Use the dot symbol with size 8.
Use the triangle symbol when plotting a standard deviation statistic.
Use symbols when they do not overcrowd the graph.