The invention belongs to the technical field of communication, and discloses a method for periodically generating self-defined reports of a network element management system, comprising the steps of classifying data tables in the network element management system according to types; obtaining the field of the data table and associate SQL to form a report dictionary and saving the same in the database. The network element management system reads the report dictionary in the database, and the user defines the report through the report dictionary. The network element management system generates areport template according to the user-defined report, and the report template is saved in the database. The network element management system reads the report template in the database, the user specifies the report generation cycle and start time through the report template, and then creates the report task, and the report task is saved in the database. The network element management system readsthe report tasks in the database in the background and outputs the report results. The invention solves the problem that the maintenance cost of the report forms of the network element management system is high in the prior art.