How to generate a monthly report in ISA Server 2004 or in Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway

This article describes how to generate a monthly report in Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2004 or in Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway, Medium Business Edition.

When you configure a monthly report job schedule in ISA Server 2004 or in Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway, Medium Business Edition, you can specify the specific dates that you want the monthly report generated on. If you specify the last day of a particular month, such as 31, the report only runs if the month contains 31 days. This is the same behavior as the behavior of the Windows Task Scheduler.

Because reports are always generated for the previous day or for previous days, a report that is scheduled to run on the first day of each month contains all the information from the previous month.

Note In ISA Server 2004, reports are generated 30 minutes after midnight on a particular day by using the data from the previous month. Additionally, the log files in ISA Server 2004 display time in Coordinated Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time) and not in the local time. In Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway, Medium Business Edition, reports are generated at 01:00. You can change the default time by configuring the report job properties.

To schedule a report that includes all the activity from the previous month, configure the report to run on the first day of every month. To do this, follow these steps:

For ISA Server 2004

1. Start ISA Server Management, and then connect to your ISA Server-based computer if you are not already connected to it.
2. Expand ServerName, where ServerName is the name of your ISA Server computer, and then click Monitoring.
3. Click the Reports tab, and then click Create and Configure Report Jobs.
4. Click Add, type a name for the monthly report job, and then click Next.
5. Click to clear the check boxes of the items that you do not want included in this report, and then click Next.
6. Click Monthly, on this date every month, leave the default option 1 in the box, and then click Next.
7. If you want to publish the report to a shared folder so that other users who are not logged on to the ISA Server-based computer can read the report, click to select the Publish reports to a directory check box, and then type the name of the shared folder in the Published reports directory box.
   
   Note You must grant at least Read access permissions to users who must view the report in this shared folder. If you do not publish the report, you can only view the report on a computer that is running ISA Server Management.
8. Click to select the Publish using this account check box, and then if you want to specify the credentials to write the report to the published reports folder, click Set Account.
   
   Note When you publish a report, the ISARepGen.exe process requires write permissions to the folder where you publish the report. By default, the Local System account is used to publish the report. However, if you publish the report to a folder that resides on a different computer, the Local System account credentials are passed as the account of the ISA Server-based computer. Because of this, the account of the ISA Server-based computer must have sufficient permissions to write to the destination folder. If you specify a user account to publish the report, you must make sure that this user account is granted write permissions to the destination folder.
9. When you are finished configuring the report publishing settings, click Next.
10. If you want to configure an e-mail notification for completed reports, click to select the Send e-mail notification for completed reports check box, type your e-mail information in the corresponding boxes, click Next, and then click Finish.

Note By default, ISA is configured to delete files that are older than seven days. This does not affect the ability to generate reports. Reporting requires a daily summary of the log, not the log itself. By default, the recent 35 daily summaries and the recent 13 monthly summaries are kept. You can see this in the Log Summary Properties box after you click the Configure Log Summary task in the Reports pane. It is possible to generate reports with day granularity for the recent 35 days and to generate reports with month granularity for the recent 13 months.

For Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway, Medium Business Edition

1. Start the Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway, Medium Business Edition Management console.
2. Expand the server name, and then click Logs and Reports in the right pane.
3. On the Tasks tab, click Create Recurring Report Job under Reports tasks.
4. On the Welcome to Recurring Report Job Wizard page, type a descriptive name in the Report Job Name box, and then click Next.
5. On the Recurring Report Job Scheduling page, click Monthly, on this date every month, leave the default option 1 in the box, and then click Next.
6. Clear the check boxes of the items that you do not want to include in this report, and then click Next.
7. If you want to configure an e-mail notification for completed reports, select the Send e-mail notification for completed reports check box, type the e-mail information in the corresponding boxes, and then click Next.
8. If you want to publish the report to a shared folder so that other users who are not logged on to the Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway-based computer can read the report, follow these steps:
   1. Select the Publish reports to a directory check box, and then type the name of the shared folder in the Published reports directory box.
   2. Select the Publish using this account check box. If you want to specify the credentials to write the report to the published report folder, click Set Account.
      
      Note You must grant at least Read access permissions to users who must view the report in this shared folder. If you do not publish the report, you can only view the report on a computer that is running the Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway Management utility.
9. On the Completing the Recurring Report Job Wizard page, review the settings. When you have finished reviewing the settings, click Finish.