Contents

Package Deployment
CMA Policies
Dashboards

Package Deployment

  • Creating a new deployable package: have to scroll to see version drop-down:

  • Selecting an agent version that doesn’t have a patch should make the patch selection not selectable:
  • The default should be blank for RT servers (or only shown if a box is checked). We always blank this field out: Would a brand-new customer use this?
  • There should be some differentiation between a deployable package that can be done through device management and packages that must be done manually. There isn’t any indicator during package creation or in the repository which packages can be deployed or not:

  • Interface design: Having to change to a different administration area (managed devices) to deploy a package I just created in “Deployable Packages” isn’t very intuitive. I should be able to deploy my package from the screen I just created the package in (as well as from managed devices):
  • After deploying a package, the success pop-up should have a link directly to the deployment status:
  • Deployment status should not be hidden behind a menu. It is jarring to deploy something and not be able to immediately get to a status window
  • Clicking the icon should take me directly to the deployment status:
  • If there is a failure, there should be an indicator of where to look: Is there a patrol agent log file a TSPS log file? How can I find what this error might mean? So far I saw something in the CMA.LOG and on the TSIM server there is new directory: <TSIM_Install_dir\pw\pronto\data\KMDEPLOYMENT
  • When viewing the deployable package, it doesn’t show me that I deselected individual KMs for a solution:

  • The sub-component selections during Create Deployable Package are different then Edit Deployable Package:

  • When you create a Deployable Package and select Latest for the version, you only have certain options based on the Latest Version of the KM:

But if you edit that same package, sub-components from an OLDER KM are displayed:

If you select one of those older options (without realizing WHY it shows up) and save that package, the Latest is now an older version and you can’t change it to the true latest without deleting the package:

CMA Policies

  • When viewing a policy to view active monitoring, there is massive amount of drill-down to find what is configured especially if multiple monitors are set. I have to expand every tree AND every layer of the tree to just find where I configured process monitoring.

I shouldn’t have to expand 3 times to get to the data. Just expand it once. Each row should be modelled after something like a server threshold configuration where each column is populated with key information without having to expand a menu:

  • It is difficult to see the configuration as the columns disappear when you expand and the value of each column is spread out too far.
  • I should be able to edit each configuration from the view instead of going back out and breaking the context of what I wanted to modify.
  • From the view I should be able to see affected agents:
  • There is no way to assign a policy to a group that my logged in user group is not a member of. What is the point of being able to assign / associate a policy to a user group if it can’t be to any group that has permission to the application?
  • You can see our SSO configuration has very specific groups:
  • But I can only assign the associated user group to my personal Active Directory groups. This makes this function pretty worthless. It has also always been odd that this enumerates non-security groups:
  • I cannot use my keyboard with agent selection criteria. In the old CMA, I could press the letter and it would select an item from the list. The keyboard doesn’t respond. It may seem minor but this notably slows down creating a policy.
  • This object should be a link to edit instead of hiding behind the triple-Ds or just add buttons for Edit / Delete:
  • Move the “+ Configuration Link” to the left side instead of on the right.
  • Even though it is nice not having a separate fork for CMA policy work, the configurations don’t really make for efficiency because all configurations are free-text fields and it is very common to copy/paste text from the list of Monitors or Devices in the Monitoring screens and put them in a policy. With the current “single-screen” setup, I have to either: plan ahead and copy the text OR I have to break my flow and cancel the policy, locate the monitor then create a new policy.
  • As an example: I want to create a server threshold for a Windows Service. I have to go to the device so I can copy the name:
  • I then create a policy to paste the text in the name field:
  • If I forgot to do that ahead of time, I would have to cancel out of that tree, click: Devices -> Select Device -> Find the object I want a policy for -> Copy the text.
  • I cannot delete a policy until it has been disabled and I don’t even get to see a greyed out option until the policy is disabled. It took us a while to just find this option you can’t hide key actions from the user:
  • With a policy that can contain multiple entries, I shouldn’t have to click Add -> to Popout window -> OK -> Click Add -> to popout window…. When I am in the entry window, just keep it open (like the old CMA) and allow me to keep adding entries.

This can be especially frustrating with Server Thresholds where I have to make ALL of my selections for every threshold I add. The old CMA allowed me to save most of the parameters for that threshold window session:

The Linux KM almost has it but the swipe-across gets covered instead of leaving it available:

  • Editing a policy consistently forces you do edit within the edit and you can get burned if you don’t realize you have to edit within the edit. For example, if I edit a policy that lists a bunch of processes, I can’t just click Add again to add more processes to the list (even though I am intuitively in edit mode). I have to actually edit the subconfiguration:

I got burned thinking the configurations would merge so had to recreate a bunch of monitor objects or you get this error:

At the very least it should ask if you want to merge the configurations.

  • I’ve never understood why the name used for monitoring something is different than the name used when setting a threshold. It is very confusing:
  • The search field for policies used to be useful because you could enter search criteria and it would remain as long as you were in the policy area (even if you opened and edited a policy). Now, if I search for something the moment I view or edit a policy, my search criteria and results are reset. The search field should also ALWAS be available. Stop making me click stuff:
  • In some parts of infrastructure policies the Triple-D drop-down has Edit on top and Delete on the bottom (preferred), but in other parts of the same policy it will be switched. Pay attention:
  • In the old CMA, you could see all of the information for server thresholds, now you can see very basic, moderately useful information:

This also makes it impossible to at-a-glance know which threshold to modify if you wanted to modify the CRITICAL threshold instead of MAJOR.

Dashboards

You can’t create a Top N graph with objects from TSPS, you can only select TSIM objects:

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©2012 SEI