Exporting data from Explorer
Results visible in Explorer can be exported to files containing comma-separated values (CSV) or, in the case of the Export all option on the instruction response page, tab-separated values (TSV), and results can be marked for export at the point of asking a question to automate the process.
Exporting the responses instruction list
To export the responses instruction list, an administrator would follow these steps:
The instruction list displayed on the Responses page can be exported to a .csv file.
Clicking on the Export button exports the current page of instructions to a file called instructionsList.csv.
You can check the contents of the file in a text application such as Notepad.
Exporting instruction responses
Exporting the values enables the responses to be acted upon outside of Tachyon via a script, batch file or 3rd party application.
The information contained in the responses to a particular instruction can be exported in various ways:
On a single page basis to a .csv file from the Explorer. Single-page exports are output in comma-separated format. This is to enable the limited amount of data to be easily viewed in a spreadsheet application. Because of the small amount of data held in these files single-page exports are downloaded via the website to the browser's download cache.
Exporting the drill-down information held for a single item in the responses page.
Exporting all the responses to a .tsv file once the instruction has completed. Exporting all the responses outputs to a tab-separated format file. This is to enable the potentially large amount of data to be easily processed by a 3rd party application. Because of the potentially large amount of data these files are output to a share location that must be selected by the user. Please refer to Configure Tachyon to support the Export all responses feature for more details.
To demonstrate these types of export we'll use the responses for the question Which Windows services are disabled?
Exporting one page of the top-level responses
To export one page of the top-level responses, follow these steps:
To export the current page of responses click on the Export button in the row just above the table heading where the responses are displayed. The Export button is shown highlighted in the picture opposite, and the resulting file, called aggregatedResults.csv, is downloaded to the browser's download folder, as seen in the bottom-left of the chrome browser shown in the picture.
For top-level responses the output file is always called aggregatedResults.csv. If the file already exists in the downloads folder the browser will usually rename the downloaded file by appending consecutive numbers to the end.
When you open the .csv file you will see the exported responses from the current page. The picture shows the aggregatedResults.csv file opened using notepad.
An administrator could then use these responses to identify any disabled services that should be running.
Exporting drill-down responses
Let's suppose that an administrator is interested in investigating and taking action on the devices where the Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) service is disabled.
To export drill-down responses, follow these steps:
Clicking on that top-level response for that service displays all the devices that have responded to say that it is disabled. In our example this shows a number of devices where the service has been disable, as shown in the picture opposite.
We can now select to export the drilled-down responses in order to use that information outside of Tachyon. The picture opposite shows the result of clicking the Export button. In the case of drilled-down responses the exported file is called detailedResults.csv.
Now when we open the file in notepad we can see the names of the devices and the service that is disabled. This can then be passed on to another resource to process those devices to get the service turned on.
Export all results from the completed instruction
To export all results from the completed instruction, follow these steps:
When an instruction has completed, that is when it has finished retrieving answers from the Tachyon client devices, the Export all results button will appear on the responses page.
Clicking the Export all results button displays the Export all results popup. Here you need to enter the location of an appropriately permissioned share where the results will be exported. Please refer to Configure Tachyon to support the Export all responses feature for more details. In our example we have a share called Tachyon located on the same server as our Tachyon Web Server. The path to the share is \\ACME-TCN01\TachyonResponses in our example the share has previously been entered so the dialog recalls the name for us.
After the share has been designated click the Save button to begin the export.
Once the export has finished, a file named Response_<timestamp>.tsv will be created in the specified share.
In our example, opening the exported .tsv file in Notepad shows all the results related to the Which Windows services are disabled? instruction.
You'll notice that exporting in this way includes far more information than the export of the single page shown earlier and the type of data displayed is different.
The single-page export shown earlier contains the processed values, as displayed when viewing the responses page, whereas the .tsv contains all the raw unprocessed data sent back from the Tachyon client devices.
Exporting device information
The information on the Devices Table page can also be exported to a .csv file, as described in the following steps:
From the Devices Table page, clicking the Export button exports the current page of devices to a file called Devices.csv.
The contents of the Devices.csv can be displayed using Notepad.exe.