Gather information for Software Support from the Administration Console

You can run the kSupport.sh tool from the Administration Console to gather information about the PPM Server node you currently access with your web browser, and then send that information to Software Support to help diagnosing system problems. This helps to ensure that your issues can be resolved quickly, with minimal requests for information.

The kSupport tool is designed to serve as a troubleshooting knowledge system for PPM. Embedding into the tool the knowledge gathered from supporting PPM customers around the world, Micro Focus expects the tool to make PPM self-diagnosable and self-healable. The flexible interface of the tool makes it easy to absorb new knowledge as PPM develops and Micro Focus Software Support’s knowledge grows.

To collect support data for your PPM Server:

1. In the Administration Console Actions panel, select Support Task > Generate Support Information.

2. Provide the information described in the following table.

   Note: Although none of the fields listed are required, to generate information for Software Support, you must select at least one of the check boxes.

   Field	Description
   Company Name	Name of your organization
   Incident Number	Number Micro Focus has assigned to the incident you reported
   System Information	Select this check box to generate log and report information. Standard. Select this option to collect information about the PPM Server<PPM_Home>/<PPM Server> level) log and PPM Server reports. Full. Select this option to collect information about the following logs: Upgrade Install Deploy (<PPM_Home> level) Server (<PPM_Home>/<PPM Server> level) JDBC log Note: To see a list of the reports covered, move your cursor over the text "Collect Server (PPM_Home/server level) log and reports."
   Super support information	Selecting this check box enables you to search logs by specifying time range and keywords. Start time. Click the Show Date Chooser icon to specify a start time. End time. Click the Show Date Chooser icon to specify an end time. Logs search key. Enter keywords for logs search. If specifying both the time range and the keywords, you can retrieve logs containing the keywords within the time range. This helps quickly locate the desired information from the massive logs and avoid getting outdated logs. Note: If the time zone of PPM Server has been changed, the logs cannot be extracted correctly by the specified time range.
   Supper support modules	Selecting this check box enables you to gather information based on modules. Then, select specific modules that you want to gather information for. For example, if you want to gather information for the Demand Management module only, you can just select the DM checkbox. The retrieved information for the Demand Management module is stored in the <kSupport_Zip_File>/etc/DM directory. Note that the check boxes for the Core, DBChangeCheck, and SeedDataCheck modules are always selected by default, no matter which modules you select. This means the script is always run for these four modules. Running the script on the Core module gathers common information not related to any specific modules. Running the script on the other three mandatorily selected modules collects data that users have modified. For more details, see Collect Modified Data below. The DBChangeCheck module is enhanced in 9.30, Running the script on the Performance module gathers information about PPM performance. In order to proactively detect some common configuration errors, data missing issues, potential data corruption issues, and so on, the kSupport tool can perform some sanity checks for several modules, especially for integration modules. The sanity check is designed based on best practices of PPM Center Support, so it may help find out the causes for some system issues in less time. Note:   If an integration module is not enabled, you cannot retrieve support information for that module by selecting the check box for the corresponding module here. Specifying the time range in the Super support information check box section also helps retrieve database queries within the time range. For example, if you specify the time range and select the DMS check box, only the integration events within the time range will be retrieved.
   Run SQLs	Select this check box to include SQL SELECT statement results in the support information you generate.
   Run SQLs from Zip file or single SQL file	Select this check box to specify either a single SQL file, or a Zip file that contains multiple SQL files (or subdirectories). Then, click Browse to navigate to and select the file(s). Note: Only SELECT statements are retrieved and run. Make sure that the SQL statements you type in the text box do not exceed 1 MB in size.
   Enter your SQL script in the text box below	Select this check box if you want to simply type one or more SQL SELECT statements to run. Then, type the statement(s) in the text box provided. Note: If you type multiple statements, make sure that you start each statement on a new line and end each statement with a semicolon (;).

3. Click Generate.

Collecting Modified Data

Data that users have modified are collected everytime you run kSupport.sh on the following three mandatorily selected modules.

• DBChangeCheck. The script compares user’s database objects against the baseline data, such as constraints, packages, triggers, and indexes. The retrieved comparison report is stored in the <kSupport_Zip_File>/etc/DBChangeCheck directory.

  The constraint comparison report can be found in the <kSupport_Zip_File>/etc/DBChangeCheck/DBChangeReport.html file. The report lists the following:

  • Missing primary keys, foreign keys, and unique constraints

  • Custom primary keys, foreign keys, and unique constraints

• SeedDataCheck. The script compares the baseline seed data with user’s seed data, such as request status, workflows, and portlet definitions. The retrieved comparison report is stored in the <kSupport_Zip_File>/etc/SeedDataCheck directory.