How to Generate Reports in Active Directory?

Organizations often have a need to generate security and management reports in their Active Directory deployments. These reports typically capture important aspcts of user and computer account and even security group management.

There are various ways to generate reports in Active Directory –

1. IT administrators can compile a list of reports and then for each report write a set of custom LDAP queries to generate these reports. Note however that some reports can be difficult to put together using only LDAP queries (e.g. True Last Logon reports)


2. IT administrators can use the Powershell technology from Microsoft to enhance their scripting capabilities to generate reports. The problem with this too is that it is error-prone and may require substantial time to use depending on the number of reports. In addition, additional work is needed to format the reports to that they are in a presentable fashion.


3. IT administrators can use 3rd party tools to generate reports. Numerous ISVs offer many 3rd party tools and these tools automate report generation so IT administrators can save their valuable time and effort, and generate their reports in a quick, reliable and efficient manner.

Most organizations choose to use a combination of custom written scripts and 3rd party automated tools to generate reports in Active Directory.