Daily status email report?

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-02

My managers have asked me to provide a emailed daily status of the data centre/s. (instead of looking at any portals)

I have identified what types of reports/data they want but I can not see anywhere in DCE that could generate and send one.

Types of reports needed:

Device groups (folders with traffic light colors)
All critical or warning faults (excluding communication) (search results in DCE web)
Alarm history (last 24 hours) showing occurred and resolved times.

Does anyone know how this could be done?

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-02

Hi Chad,

You can run a table report for communications status. You would be able then to see the values for the date range or relative time (last 24 hours)You would need to create and recreate this report 7 times, one for each day. This way you can get communications status reports every day.

There is no report currently that can be run to specifically provide a list of alerts over the last 24 hours. The system simply can be configured to send alarms when the different sensors are alarming. In the different reports that you can run, you can specify columns for your report such as device status and alarm state. This should at least provide some of the info you're looking for but to get specific sensors, you'd need to be running reports on every device and every sensor. That's a lot of reports if you have thousands of devices and I'm not sure how manageable that would be.

As for device groups, there are no specific reports that you can run to show device group. It's simply not an available column when configuring columns in the report. You can work around this if you want but again with multiple devices, this may be a bit of work. You can create a custom property of group or device group and assign the value to each device (or for more work, each sensor). You can then configure these custom properties within your report.

Steve

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-02

There might have been some confusion, I have adjusted my original dot point to now say "All critical or warning faults (excluding communication)". Sorry about that. I think that would over load management with data, and confuse them. The closest thing I have found so far is parts of the DCE web view. But there needs to be a gadget for device groups, alarms filtered for the last 24 hours and then email it every day. Maybe I can get a more malleable dashboard from the portal server...?

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-02

Hi Chad,

You can also right click on a device group and select "Show Alarm History" which will bring up a filterable view with a configurable time window. You can then export this data into CSV or TXT if you'd like. This view is available by right clicking on an individual device as well.

The output is not a pretty report, but you might be able to use it to generate the date that you need.

-Scott

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-02

Thanks Scott, that is one part of the data set I would like to include and automatically send with a report. but its still manual and if I am not in that day it cant get done...

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-02

Hi Chad, I definitely agree that this view doesn't quite fit your needs as you explained. Hopefully it will provide a bit of a stopgap solution in the short term as we look to find a better solution.

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-02

The reports tab definitely needs to be upgraded. There is a lot of need for the reports requested.

Issues in the last X hrs. - Daily email

Quick report of all active issues

etc.

Some of this can probably be created using the SOAP interface but unfortunately that is lacking as well. You have to run multiple requests to get the alarm, device and location.

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-02

I would add, "Quick report of all active issues" and any comments added from the acknowledge alarm screen.

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-02

Hi John/Chad (and anyone else that has feedback),

Thanks for the feedback. We're actively discussing how we can make the application more useful when it comes to displaying alarms, and it would be great to get your input.

If we were to create a daily alarm report what information would need to be included, and how would you expect the data to be segmented. For example, would you expect a flat list of alarms that includes the alarm information along with some information about the device it occurred on and the device group it is in. Or maybe you would prefer the e-mail to have the alarms grouped together by the device group they occurred in along with some specific device information?

Chad it sounds like you're also looking for something that you could export from the product that shows the overall status of each of your locations (device groups). Would you prefer this to be more of a visual rich view of the groups, or more textual like a spreadsheet with the group names and a column with the status of each.

We've also been discussing ways within the product itself to help people focus on new alarms vs those that may have been active for a while. Is this something you struggle with today, or at least find useful? Please share your thoughts either way.

-Scott

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-02

Given that I had management in mind for this report I think it needs to be fairly visual and "at a glance" type of report. I think the device groups (I use each of the states around Australia) type view with a status color or icon is a must for me. If then possible to click on it to expand or listed as sub points under each group showing all the current faults outstanding with another clear break but subtle space between any that occurred with in the last 24 hours.

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-02

Thanks Chad! So it sounds like the most important part of the report is to easily see what the overall status of your various data centers are. Secondly it would be nice to be able to drill into the details if/when someone started asking questions about what is going on. Is it important for you to be able to e-mail or print this information, or would it be acceptable to have it available as an interactive type of thing in a web browser that you could point someone to?

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-02

This report must be able to be sent in email form.

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-02

OK great, thanks

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-02

Hi Scott!
I would like to add, that there is needs to have some different formats of periodical reports - graphic, tables, editable and non-editable.
For example, my ex-boss wants to receive power draw of the datacenter a week before every monday at 9:30. It needs to be graph in pdf with average values.
In relation to alarms, I think, that it will be good to have ability for some report configuration - grouping type, detalization and so on...
It may looks like this:

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-02

Thanks for the visual Valentin! Out of curiosity, do you currently have device groups for Cooling, Power, and Environment under each location? Or would you be looking for DCE to create groupings based on the types of devices within each location?

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-02

I like the dynamic grouping (power, cooling and env) for each location but either way i think it could work...

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-02

This question is closed for comments. You're welcome to start a new topic if you have further comments on this issue.