How to create Windows File Server storage reports and email alerts

Case #

You need to receive Windows File Server storage reports and email alerts from the File Server Resource Manager console.

Solution #

Launch the Windows File Server Resource Manager console as a local administrator and carry out the steps below:

1. Right click the top level node named "File Server Resource Manager" and choose "Configure Properties".
2. Click the Email notifications tab and enter your SMTP and From: field parameters. This will enable sending email alerts from the console. You can test your SMTP server by temporarily providing a default recipient address (which you can erase afterwards).
3. You can optionally change the parameters in the storage reports tab. These are global parameters and apply to all reporting tasks created from now on. Otherwise you can set these parameters individually on each storage report you create from now on.
4. Navigate to the "Storage Reports Management" node.
5. On the Action pane, click on "Schedule a New Report Task".
6. In the settings tab of the storage report task properties window, tick the report data you wish to receive and click Edit Parameters on each report to set its unique parameters. For example, for the quota usage report, you can set a minimum percentage threshold of user quota to report on.On this tab also provide a report name and the report formats to receive, e.g. DHTML or CSV.
7. On the scope tab, tick the data classification categories which include the folders you need to include in your storage reports.
8. On the delivery tab, tick the "send reports to the following administrators" checkbox and set the recipient email addressses separated by semicolon.
9. On the schedule tab, set the time schedule for the email alerts.

In case you need to manage the File Server Resource Manager via Powershell, the relevant cmdlets are available at: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/fileserverresourcemanager/?view=win10-ps