Problem Statement:

We do ship installable and applicable errata reports and we also have a way to list installed packages per host but that is not good enough when it comes to the reporting that end-users want. 

As we continued to work with more customers and observed some more reports that tools like Bigfix Suma or SCCM ( MCM ) can provide, we got some more clarification on what else we need and that is not any new template but some more macros to fetch some more required information about installable\applicable errata and rpms. 

The lack of macros to create those reports easily is the key concern here. 

User Experience & Workflow:

Users would be using the macros ( related to the data mentioned in the requirements section ) to create their own reports and generate them.

Requirements:

For each host and each type i.e. Applicable and Installable ERRATAs:

• Individual Names\IDs per host in list format [ which we already can do ]

• Total Count
      * Individual Names\IDs [ e.g. RHSA-2024-1234 ] as well
      * The whole list of ERRATAs in a format that can fit inside one cell, per host

• Count based on Individual types [ e.g. Security\bugfix\Enhancement ] e.g. if someone needs to print just Security type errata counts, they should be able to do so.
      * Individual Names\IDs as well.

• Count based on severity [ e.g. Low, Important, Critical, Moderate, None ] e.g. if I want to see a count of all the Critical Severity ERRATAs for a host, I should be able to do so.
      * Individual Names\IDs as well.

• To be able to print some score [ as SUMA report can do ] [ Support case 03828643 - Attachment suma_report.png ] if there is any such mechanism to do so [ but this is not so urgent ]

Similarly, For each host and for each type i.e. Applicable and Installable RPMs:

• Individual Names\IDs per host in list format [ which we already can do ] ( based on the latest versions for each package )

• Total Count ( based on the latest versions for each package )
      * Individual NVRA`s  as well
      * The whole list of NVRA`s in a format that can fit inside one cell, per host

• If I want to print what the latest applicable or installable version of package openssl is present for a host, I should be able to do so.

• Under the context of installable or applicable, some users just want to print name + version or name + version + release and we should be able to do so. And Some users also want to be able to print `Vendor` as well

I believe some of these can already be done but they are not easy to figure out. So for most of them, we need individual macros to be created and made available within safemode so that users can refer to them and use them to build their templates.

I also noticed that methods like pluck, sub, select etc are not available to use within safemode. But perhaps they should be allowed as I have seen some users trying to use them to further customize the results obtained from a macro. 

Business Impact:

• When satellite's reporting capability is being compared with some other non-rh patching and reporting tools, end-users rather prefer the non-rh tools due to having less complexity. 

• Since we don't explain what each macro can do in the Help section, It's not easy for an admin to quickly find out what macros he can use to pull some required data and what data he further needs that he cannot pull out using existing macros. That delays in generation of report template and causes further delays for their patching schedule.