Eric's last blog entry gave a glimpse of some of the new reporting features. I'm going to go through that in more detail in this entry. As Eric warned earlier, the user interface is still in progress and subject to change. For example, the icons are currently just conceptual placeholders.
Reporting in current versions of Retrospect, while useful, has a number of limitations:
- Finding things in a report was cumbersome.
- They either didn't give enough information, or the information was hidden in another area.
- There wasn't much to do with the information once you had found it.
- You could only change the report in specific, pre-defined ways.
Finding things
You could always do a text search in all the lists and reports in Retrospect, and that is not going away as evidenced by the now prevalent Search Bar visible in the global toolbar. To further narrow a search, we are adding Scope Bars which allow you to quickly focus in.
Sometimes that isn't enough, however. So in the new Retrospect, we are introducing advanced find features. These will work very much the way finding in a Finder window works: You can keep adding layers by clicking the plus icon after doing a search, or go there directly by choosing Find from the Edit menu.
More information
Today, most lists in Retrospect only have one or two columns. In the new version, we are exposing all object properties as possible columns. Many of these are hidden by default but can be shown by right-clicking the column header (as in iTunes) or by choosing Options from the View menu (as in the Finder). You can also use these in the advanced find mode above.
In the limelight: Backups and Activities
Currently, the Backup Report lists backups of sources in a rather rigid way. It only allows two different sets of columns and interaction with the report is limited. You can't browse the backup, nor see anything other than the most recent backup.
In the Windows version of Retrospect, if you wish to see backups previous to the ones shown in the Backup Report, or you wish to know the number of files backed up or other data than what is shown, you can go to the History tab in the Activity Monitor. But the two are not integrated so double-clicking an item in the Backup Report only shows you the script that initiated the backup. Moreover, the History tab can’t be customized in any way, so you cannot choose to only view unsuccessful backups or any of the other reports that are readily available in the Backup Report.
In Retrospect X, we will be bringing over the contents of the Activity Monitor from the Windows version and promoting it to the left sidebar as a single global list. All properties in the exported backup report—as well as in the history report—will be available columns that you can show and sort as needed. The existing Backup Reports will be converted to use this global list and we will be adding others. If we leave anything out, you will be able to create your own reports to see only failed backups, backups with poor performance, backups of critical machines or perhaps backups to specific Backup Sets.
Status Icons
One of the comments I hear from many people is how verbose Retrospect is. We really go out of our way to describe everything. Sometimes less is more, so most views will now have status objects. This is really exposing information we already know and report on, but hopefully will do a better job calling out what is going on.
Reports as a launching pad
Another comment we hear a lot is that after you finally do find that user that hasn't been backed up or that a backup set that is low on free space, you now have no clue where you need to go to fix the problem. Enter launch buttons, inspired by the icons in iTunes that take you to the iTunes music store or publish a playlist. In our case, clicking the arrow next to "Steve's Air" will take you to the Sources list and select "Steve's Air" from the list. At that point, all the actions you can take to find out why Steve isn't showing up on the network are in a toolbar at the bottom of the window. Alternately, you can just click on the name of the object and it will take you there as well, à la clicking the labels in Apple's Address book.
Creating a new report
So far, we haven't made or looked at any actual reports. This can be done by clicking the Save button visible once you have done a search.
Selecting the Save button brings down a sheet that allows you to give the report a name and optionally add it to the Retrospect dashboard. Saved reports show up under the Reports icon in the sidebar on the left. The report will keep the currently shown columns and sorting order.
Viewing and changing a report
Selecting a report under the Reports icon or double-clicking its title in the Retrospect dashboard will open the report for viewing. You can search in the report using the same search bar as the original view. Reports are dynamic and change as Retrospect continues to back up and run. If you make any changes, you can select "Save" to save your changes or choose "Save as..." to create a new report.
Reports out of the box
In addition to the reports Retrospect offers today, we will be adding the following new ones:
- Not backed up
- Not backed up recently (in 3 days)
- Need new media
- Active Media (Media that had been backed up to within the month)
- Inactive Media (Media that has not been backed up to within a year)
- Media free space (only disk, columns of free space)
What do you all think of these? Any others that you would like to see? Let us know!
JG