Planning your report messages
A report message is a tabular form message issued to the message buffer, often to display supplementary information for an exception message. A report message give you more control over the formatted message output than any other check message type. Use a report message if your check has a lot of data to display about an exception to avoid issuing multiple exception WTO messages for a single check iteration. (WTOs can be a performance/resource issue.)
Your check should issue a report message before the exception message it supplements. In addition, your check should issue an informational title message before the report that includes the entire explanation for the report, including the meaning of variables, because a report message is not documented anywhere. There is no message number associated with a report message in the message buffer (except in debug mode viewed in SDSF).
The key rule for reports issued by checks is to make sure your report can stand on its own. In other words, for the sake of IBM Health Checker for z/OS users, make sure that your report is as clear and self-explanatory as possible.