Dashboards and Portals¶

A Dashboard is a custom made map containing the information that a user would like to see. Dashboards are highly customizable and can show as much or as little information that should be displayed to a user.

The Assure1 Dashboard Engine provides all of the dashboard editing and display capabilities within the software. The Dashboard Engine is also multi-tenant ready, allowing unique, real-time views of data in whatever manner is useful. The Dashboard Engine provides the following features:

Intuitive, embedded dashboard editor with drag-and-drop assembly.
Dashboard version control and cloning capabilities.
Real-time widgets for events and metrics including gauges and graphs.
Support for context (right-click) menus and tools for event and metric widgets.
Multi-tenancy functionality supported for customized views.
Dynamic Device dashboard templates reduce administration.

Dashboards can draw in a wide range of performance metrics, event data, SLM data, and topology data from underlying systems, and are configurable to serve the needs of a wide-ranging set of users from CIOs and CTOs to NOC managers, NOC operators, customers, etc.

Building A Dashboard¶

Users may want custom views to see data in a certain way. Assure1 has the flexibility to define any view within the Dashboard engine. Dashboards can display any set of data from events and metrics in a single pane. This document will talk you through how to generate a view with different sets of items for display, otherwise known as widgets.

Objectives¶

Create a simple dashboard.
Use various widgets on the dashboard.
Create custom Dashboard Groups.
Create custom context menus (right-click) and Tools.

Building a Dashboard¶

Navigate to Configuration -> Dashboards -> Dashboards.
To generate a new dashboard, click add.
Use the following values as an example - or anything you would like. Some fields are required - validation will warn you if you missed something when Submitting or Saving later.
Dashboard Name - My Custom Dashboard
Width - 800 (# pixels)
Height - 600 (# pixels)
Background Color - #FFFFFF (can use the color chart in the drop down)
Category - Basic (this is the one you will use for 99% of dashboards)
Initial Dashboard Group - Root
The next step is to add information for viewing. Click Add in the menu bar.
1. You can minimize/collapse the Properties section by clicking on the name.
After clicking add, a menu appears on the right-hand side. This is where any Dashboard Widget can be selected and clicked/dragged over the Dashboard canvas.
Click the Event widget and drag/drop onto the Dashboard canvas.
1. Once done the panel on the right will change to the configuration panel for the widget. Depending on the type of widget selected (events/metrics/basic) this will change the available options.
2. The image shows the setting up of an Event Filter to display All Ticket Events based on a defined filter.
The form is split into the following sections:
Position
- The Position section is used to alter the size of the widget (width, height), the position of the widget (X, Y), and allows you to rotate the widget also.
Display
- The Display section is used to alter the colour theme of the widget (solid colour or gradient) as well as the stroke width (thickness of the border line).
Filter
- Filter Type - Determines which events are included. Each filter type has it's own associated fields
  - Event Filter - Currently defined filter, sortable by Filter Group.
    - Filter Group - Subset of event filters.
    - Filter Name - Actual filter to use within the selected Filter Group.
  - Device - Show events by a single Device.
    - Device Name - Only show events for the selected device.
  - Meta Tag - Devices can have associated data, show events by this associated data - such as Location, Department, etc.
    - Meta Type - Subset of meta tags.
    - Meta Tag - All of the tags within the selected Meta Type.
  - Transient Event List - Custom SQL query WHERE clause.
    - Where - Actual SQL clause used to filter events.
- Display - What event fields are included in the grid.
Action
- Link Type - This is the action that occurs when the widget is clicked. Possible items include:
  - Manual - Custom URL path, either internal to Assure1 (UI page) or external.
  - Event List - Load the event list based on the defined Filter section.
  - Dashboard - Load another dashboard.
- Link Target - The action to take when you click the widget.
  - Same Tab - Replace the dashboard with the Action's results.
  - New Tab - Open the Action in a new tab within Assure1.
  - New Window - Open the Action in a floating window within Assure1.
- Context Menu - The dashboard menu, if any, to show when the context menu is activated.
  - None - Do not apply a context menu to the widget.
  - Global - Show the Global dashboard context menu.
  - There may be other options available, depending on your configuration.
Add a Event -> Ellipse widget and change the following options. Review the additional configuration options that are available for the widget.
Filter Type - Event Filter.
Filter Name - Syslogs.
Displays - Default.
Add a Event -> Gauge widget and change the following options. Review the additional configuration options that are available for the widget.
Name - All Events.
Filter Type - Event Filter.
Filter Name - All Events.
Displays - Default.
Add a Metric -> Rectangle widget and change the following options. Review the additional configuration options that are available for the widget.
Device Name - (Select any device available in the list).
Metric Type - (Select any available metric type for the selected device).
Metric Instance - (Select any available instance for the selected type).
Period - Last Hour.
Threshold Type - Performance Utilization.
Warning Threshold - None.
Critical Threshold - None.
Add a Metric -> Graph widget and change the following options. Review the additional configuration options that are available for the widget.
Ensure the Show Graph Title, Show Key, Show Y Title, and Show Background options are checked.
Device Name - (Select any device available in the list).
Metric Type - (Select any available metric type for the selected device).
Metric Instance - (Select any available instance for the selected type).
Period - Last Hour.
Review and try out the additional widget layout options that are available when creating Dashboards. This includes the various controls below:
History - here you can undo/redo changes made to the Dashboard.
Canvas - Clone brings up the edit menu for the cloned item, Quick Clone does not.
Rotate - you can rotate the widgets to meet your needs.
Layer - similar to Visio for example, you can layer widgets.
Align - selected more than 2 widgets at once (CTRL-Click) will allow you to align widgets together without having to manually select the right x,y coordinates for example
Using the Configuration -> Dashboards -> Dashboard Groups UI, create a group under Root named Admin Dashboards. Add My Custom Dashboard to the group.Dashboards are fully multitenant - therefore putting Dashboards in groups will allow different sets of users to see the data. If there is data on a dashboard the user is not allowed to see, it will not show up or will throw a simple error when trying to view the underlying data for that specific device.

Portals¶

A Real-time Portal is used to organize unified service assurance data (events, metrics, and topology) as well as 3rd party or integration user interfaces to a completely normalized end-user display.

Portals allow you create static reporting as well as real-time dynamic unified interfaces (based upon device or service). Portals are edited through a web interface that allows you to drag/drop individual interfaces or Portlets onto the portal configuration.

Creating A Portal¶

Purpose¶

Assure1 administrators need to understand the functionality and portability of Portals.

Objectives¶

Create a simple portal with various portlets
Create a custom Portal group

Creating a Portal¶

Navigate to Configuration->Portals->Portals and click Add.
On the edit screen, click on Configure Portal on the right hand side. Now give the portal a name, and user/group owners for multi-tenancy (editing). Use the following Portal settings as an example:
Portal Name - Overall Status Portal.
Portal User Owner - [Public to All Users In Group].
Portal Group Owner - [Public to All Groups].
Panels - Add a second panel to the Portal. Change the panel 2 value to
In the configuration form, expand the Portlet Templates section. Add the following portlets to the specified section.
Drag-and-drop an Event List portlet to the first panel's Drop portlet here section.
Drag-and-drop a Database Grid portlet to the second panel's Drop portlet here section.
Drag-and-drop an Adhoc Graph portlet to the third panel's Drop portlet here section.
Edit the Event List portlet by clicking the View/Wrench button (this will open a form to the right of the grid). Change the following options:
Portlet Name: Can be any text.
Display: Changes which columns are available, choose the Tickets option to see case status and ticket number for example.
Database: Can choose between Real Time, or current events, or Historical.
Filter Type: Basic configuration for which method to display events, by device, filter, etc
Once finished editing the portlet, click View.
Edit the Database Grid portlet. This allows you to display any data from pre-configured SQL queries (for basic reports, etc). Change the following options and click the View button:
Portlet Name: Topology Audit.
Query: Topology Audit.
Once finished editing the portlet, click View.
Edit the Adhoc Graph portlet. Change the following options and click the View button:
Portlet Name: Enter a name for the portlet.
Graph State: This displays the graph or not - leaving just the legend for basic reports such as trending, etc.
Legend State: This displays or hides the legend when viewed.
Period: Set the time frame to show the data (raw data/daily, or aggregates for weekly/monthly/yearly).
AutoTime: Left at custom for this example, but could be set to a specific time range
Manual Start/Stop Time: Leave blank unless running report for a set time, otherwise will do Last Day, Last Week, etc., depending on Period selected.
Trend: Show trend in the legend. % Change over period time selected.
Threshold Lines: Show Threshold lines (if defined) by default on graph.
The next section is where specific metrics are selected to display on the graph. Clicking the filter icon helps search for specific devices and metrics quickly. It is recommend you expand the form (click and drag or use the maximum button to see all items easily).
Example: Under 'Device' search for your Assure1 server. Notice you see only the Assure1 device and its available metrics. Now search for 'Bandwidth' under 'Metric Types'. Now only Bandwidth metrics for the Assure1 device will be displayed. Click or double-click an item to add it to the 'Selected' box at the bottom. Anything in this section will be displayed in your graph. You can select multiple metrics of different types or just a single metric as desired.
Once finished, click View.
Click the Submit button to save the Portal.
Navigate to Configuration->Portals->Portal Groups. Click Add to create a group under Root named NOC Portals. Add the Overall Status Portal portal to the group by selecting it and clicking the down arrow.
Expand the Portals accordion, click Refresh, then expand the NOC Portals portal group. Click on the Overall Status Portal portal to open it.
Portlets can be click-and-dragged to be rearranged for any specific need or desire.

What is a Portlet¶

Portlets are the individual components that make up the portal. Portlets can be configured in a static, or standalone, manner, or in a dynamic manner so changes to one portlet affect all other portlets in the same portal.

Tabs Portlet¶

Navigate to Configuration->Portals->Portals and click the Add.
Once the edit screen appears, click on Configure Portal on the right hand side. Now give the portal a name, and user/group owners for multi-tenancy (editing). Use the following Portal settings as an example:
Portal Name - Tab example Portal.
Portal User Owner - [Public to All Users In Group].
Portal Group Owner - [Public to All Groups].
In the configuration form, expand the Portlet Templates section. Add a Tabs portlet to the Drop portlets here section.
Edit the Tabs portlet by clicking the View/Wrench button (this will open a form to the right of the grid). Change the following options:
Portlet Name: Can be any text.
Tab Type: Static. Static tabs load one existing portal into each tab.
Tab Properties: Click Add twice to add 2 tabs. Click the Name value (should be Tab1 and Tab2) and name each tab something. Click the Value field in each and select a portal.
Portlet Properties: Set the Height to 300.
Once finished editing the portlet, click View. You should now see the 2 tabs you created with the specified names.
Now we will reconfigure the portlet tabs to be dynamic.
Tab Type: Dynamic. Dynamic tabs are defined at load time. What tabs get created and what content they load is determined by the Tab Source.
Tab Source: /api/metricDDO/categories/readMetricTabs?DeviceID=\<DeviceID>. The source tells the portlet where to get the tab configuration. DeviceID is the only token that can be passed into the Assure1 source defined here. If a DeviceID is passed to this portal, the "\<DeviceID>" token will be replaced with that DeviceID.
Now if you click View, you will see that you get an empty All Metrics tab. During our configuration, no DeviceID is provided, so there is nothing to display.
Click Submit to save the portal. Note the ID of the newly created portal.
Open a new browser tab and set the url to assure1.example.com/#corePortal/portals?PortalID=1234&DeviceID=5678. Use your server in place of assure1.example.com, your portal id in place of 1234, and a valid DeviceID that has metrics in place of 5678.
Now your tabs portlet will load with a variety of tabs, based on the metrics available. The available tabs are defined by Configuration->Metrics->DDO->Categories. Every dynamic tab portlet will also have an All Metrics tab on the end that includes every metric available to the device.