03 March, 2011

Report contains no data


SharePoint Server provides the ability to audit the usage of your SharePoint environment. The SharePoint Server auditing capabilities allow you to track all activities that occur within the environment. The site collection administrator has the ability to set auditing requirements within the environment that determine the types of actions that should be tracked. Reports are then available that can be used to review the logged events.

Yesterday, one of my users reported me the following error message for the site collection on which he was working:

Report contains no data

As we know, only site collection administrator works/can view the audit log reports so my user clicked on the report and got the above mentioned error message.

What you have to do in this situation:
1)   Open the site on which you are working
2)   Site actions
3)   Site settings
4)   Site collection administration
5)   Site collection audit log settings
6)   Select the columns as per your requirements 

The following list of events can be audited:
1)   Opening, Downloading and viewing of content.
2)   Editing Content
3)   Checking in and out.
4)   Moving and copying content.
5)   Deleting and restoring.
6)   Editing Content Types and Columns
7)   Searches performed by users.
8)   Changes to security settings.

Note: Make sure you do some activity in order to get the reports because you have implemented the audit logs by checking all the appropriate audit events. 

Once auditing has been enabled and the site has been in use for a while. Different reports can be pulled from the log. If no data has been recorded in the log, then the reports will simply not open.

After doing the above mentioned steps, your issue will be resolved..
In case of any queries/questions regarding the above mentioned information then please let me know, Thanks…

27 comments:

  1. How to integrate an enterprise application into sharepoint and generate reports?? Can you please let me know the various ways/steps of doing this?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Could you please give me some brief details regarding this enterprise application that you are going to integrate so that i can look into and provide you the complete info ? Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  3. More Info:
    If you are using SharePoint Online for Microsoft Office 365 for enterprises, auditing for Opening or downloading documents, viewing items in lists, or viewing item properties is not available because of storage and performance concerns

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks Jay for sharing this valuable info :) this will be helpful for the complete sharepoint communities.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Amol,

    do you have any idea how to check audit log in SQL database?

    S

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hello,

    SQL auditing can be done by using logging database

    it includes:

    ULS Logs

    Event Logs

    Blocking SQL Queries

    SQL DMV Queries

    Feature Usage

    A host of information on search crawling and querying

    Inventory of all site collections

    Timer job usage


    The logging database is a fantastic way to get an insight into what is happening within a farm. I’ve lost count of the number of times customers have complained about random performance problems but as they didn’t have any proactive monitoring in place this was nearly impossible to pinpoint.

    Please let me know your thoughts on this so we can discuss ahead. Thanks for your patience

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks Amol,

    Actually Client has deleted doc library and i am not able to find out in recycle bin. I've checked audit logs (customize as well), auditlog table in sql, Event logs, IIS logs and I am not able to find out who has deleted doc file. :(

    S

    ReplyDelete
  8. if you have set up the auditing on that site collection then it should be captured in the reports. also you will get some traces in IIS as well.

    let me know in case of any further queries, Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I've checked every options in sharepoint, but no luck.

    S

    ReplyDelete
  10. hmm, that's strange.

    To avoid such situations from future perspective, could you please cross-check the auditing options and make sure that 'DELETE' is checked in that list?

    Please let me know in case of any further queries, Thank you

    ReplyDelete
  11. Great post. I was checking continuously this blog and I'm impressed! Extremely useful information specifically the last part :) I care for such information a lot. I was seeking this certain information for a very long time. Thank you and good luck.

    My blog; No2 Maximus Reviews

    ReplyDelete
  12. If you need further SharePoint Analytics reports for SharePoint 2013, 2010, 2007 or SharePoint Online, you should try CardioLog Analytics - Free Edition, which was specifically designed for all SharePoint environments: http://www.intlock.com/free

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for sharing this! This will be useful for the complete sharepoint community.

      Delete
  13. I am trying to get the Audit Log report for “open or download” event.

    Working Scenario :
    1. Audit Log Enabled to my library for View Event
    2. Download .txt or .png file from Library
    3. I can see the entry in Report
    Issue Scenario :
    1. Audit Log Enabled to my library for View Event
    2. Open .txt or .png file in browser
    3. I cannot see the entry in Report

    Can you please suggest the reason ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. two suggestions:
      1- Try to check the audit settings by means of sharepoint designer as it has some enhanced options as compare to GUI.
      2- By means of GUI, try to setup custom audit report and mention your requirements

      Delete
    2. 1.In the Custom audit report, tried enabling this option- "Opening or downloading documents, viewing items in lists, or viewing item properties" and tested . It is not working. Still i can see the download events but not .txt opened in browser.

      2. Can you please give the steps to check via SharePoint Designer.

      Delete
    3. Its perfectly working at my end.

      I reproduced the issue and i can see the .txt and .png entries in the report.

      View audit log reports, on the View Auditing Reports page, select Content viewing and the entries related to the .txt or .png files appear in Report.

      I suggest to check whether you configure audit settings correctly and then follow the steps above the view the Report.

      Delete
    4. You are right, problem is at Settings. Thanks a lot !
      Enabling the Audit Settings at "Site Level" is working fine, But my goal is to enable the auditing to the desired library.
      To achieve this, do we need to use content type?, If we use Content Type, does it affects the other library?. I just messed up.

      Can you please suggest the best way to enable the audit settings to the specific Document Library

      Delete
    5. I would not recommend to use the content type. but what i can suggest is-

      See, we are most flexible to use Excel in our day-to-day life so once you will export the audit reports, they will ultimate.ly be saved as excel only. apply filters and sort the results with respect to that document library. Simple and Easy option!

      Let me know in case of any further queries, Thanks for your patience.

      Delete
    6. Thanks for your valuable suggestion, but we believe that, Site Level Auditing may reduce the performance of the site, We have more than 25 libraries, In that we need to monitor only one library which is more secure.

      Enabling at site level will store the records for remaining 24 libraries which we feel it unnecessary.

      I am reading the log content via Server object model API -SPAuditClass,not through OOB (I thought it is not our concern, so i didn't mentioned this earlier)

      Still i didn't get the clear idea to enable auditing at library level. any help is highly appreciable.

      Delete
    7. One thing will be pretty much sure that it is not possible out of box and might be possible using coding approach. I have never done this but now i need to check. will update if i gets the resolution quickly. Thank you.

      Delete
    8. Thanks for spending your time on this. From your statement i understood that, Enable Auditing at library level via OOB is not possible. but still We can try to enable this via Coding.
      I am also trying this, If you got the solution. Kindly let me know. Thanks Again.

      Delete
    9. sure will try my best to get on this and update the solution. Thank you.

      Delete
    10. Below code activates the Auditing at Site Level and this gives the desired result.

      SPSite siteCollection = new SPSite("SiteUrl");
      siteCollection.Audit.AuditFlags = SPAuditMaskType.View;
      siteCollection.Audit.Update();

      Below code activates the Auditing at Library Level and this not giving the clear result.

      SPSite siteCollection = new SPSite("Siteurl");
      SPWeb site = siteCollection.RootWeb;
      SPList docLib = site.Lists["Library"];
      docLib.Audit.AuditFlags = SPAuditMaskType.View;
      docLib.Audit.Update();

      I don't get the logic where went wrong.

      Delete
    11. hmm. strange one! Did you try this for new site collection or on the existing one also?

      Delete
  14. I'm having a weird problem. everything is configured, so I can view all audit reports except "Content Viewing". after clicked "content viewing", it shows "working on it....shouldn't take long", and never stop or show any error message no matter how long I wait. It is SP2013, though. Any suggestions? Thanks

    ReplyDelete

Your feedback is always appreciated. I will try to reply to your queries as soon as possible- Amol Ghuge

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