OCI 7.3 table widget column adjust, name truncation

[SMLocke]

Hello, friends! I'm setting up a new OCI dashboard, and want to cook up a simple table where I can see some counters for a certain query of LUNs (which I guess are called Volumes in OCI, but that's a question for another day). 

The entries in the Name column of the volume is truncated in a weird way. I.e., an example LUN might be lorem_ipsum_dolor_est.lun in the NetApp, but  the Volume Name column shows lorem_i....r_est.lun. You can hover the mouse over the name and it'll show the whole thing, and you can click the name to go to the LUN and see more info, but I'd like to see the whole name of the LUN within the widget. Is there any way to customize display preferences so that the entire name is shown, and the column is a little wider?

(For what it's worth, I don't plan right now to export these reports to anyone right now. This is just a proof of concept, where we plan to just take screenshots of the OCI dashboard and show them around.) 

Thanks!

[Sahana]

Hi,

Try the steps below:

Changing column width You can change the width of the column to fit in all of the longest entry automatically in the column or reduce the width to show less data.

1. To show the entire longest entry in a column, right-click the column header.

2. Select the Size to Fit option. The column adjusts automatically to the width required to display the longest entry in that column.

3. To reduce the width of a column, click on the bar to the right of the header text. The cursor changes to a double-sided arrow.

4. Drag the bar to the left. An ellipsis (…) in a cell means that the column is too narrow to show all of its content.

[SMLocke]

Hi Sahana, thanks for your response.

I'm afraid I don't see the options you're talking about. Are we talking about the same thing?

The attachment on this reply shows what I see when I right click the column headers on a table widget in OCI. In the screenshot you can see what the right click window looks like when I'm trying to edit the widget using Chrome, and what the right click window looks like when I'm trying to just view the widget in Firefox. I've tried all six permutations of Chrome, Firefox and IE, and edit mode or view mode, and none of them have the options you're talking about.

Are we talking about the same thing? Maybe you can share a similar screenshot where you see the editing options you're talking about? Thanks!

[dbourque]

Hello,  Today the column views are set to the available viewing space and this is expected behavior in OnCommand Insight versions 7.3.2 and prior.  That said,  the long resource name truncation or ellipsis (... ) displayed in the OCI WebUI widgets will see great flexibility in future versions of OCI that I believe will easily address your inquiry.   Your OnCommand Insight sales representative can align a NDA roadmap session on additional details if needed.   In the latest OnCommand Insight version (7.3.2), they introduced the ability to copy the truncated "long" filenames to your clipboard so you can easily paste the name into search windows, resource correlation views and other tool sets.  This is only a first step in many features to come. 

Hope the above mentioned is helpful and Thank you for your continued interest in OnCommand Insight.

[SMLocke]

Understood: there'll always be improvements in the next version. We can certainly talk to our sales rep.

For my particular use case (i.e., providing periodic static screenshots of dashboards for external stakeholders who do not have access to OCI), it doesn't look like OCI dashboards are going to be helpful in the near term. Does that sound accurate?

[dbourque]

Hello again,  

Yes in short, you are accurate in your understanding but i would like to kindly offer a few possibilities.  

The WebUI dashboard widgets today are targeting operational aspects and operationally speaking requires users to login and hover over or click graphs and correlations to drill into details and analytic findings.  Dashboard variables and filters can help limit/minimize which assets, resources and applications are being displayed in those widgets but they will not remediate the ellipsis for very large names for your intention of sending periodic screen captions.  However; many of the available widgets have a  "legend" selection ability that may offer some benefit into identifying which resources are being represented.

Depending on how granular you need the data, the OnCommand Insight Datawarehouse (DWH) reporting could be leveraged and is what much of our customers commonly use for providing stakeholders periodic reporting snapshots into datacenter resources.  The DWH reports will also represent the full name (with no truncation).

The DWH reports have the added benefit of being able to be routinely scheduled (taking out the manual labor involved) and can be sent to your external stakeholders in a variety of formats and email delivery options:  PDF, HTML, CSV  and you can send them every day or for example on the 1st of every month.  The reports could even be sent/stored daily to a file share location such as SharePoint for users to access when necessary. 

Many of the display visualizations available in operational Dashboard widgets are also available in the Data warehouse reports such as top 10 breakdowns, hourly, daily weekly, Monthly...Trends with added capabilities only available in the data warehouse such as forecasting, Costs and so on.   There are many available reports available on Https://automationstore.netapp.com that you could preview and download.  They are quite simple to import as well.

OnCommand Insight has one of the most aggressive release cycles in the industry with numerous releases and service packs released every year in an effort to provide our customers support for new emerging technologies and usability improvements.   If there is a use case mising or usuability improvement, we have an improvement feature request (IFR) process your OCI sales representative or SE can assist with.  Our product Management awant to hear them.    Hope this helps.

Have a wonderful day.

~Don Bourque

[CSCOTTENO]

Thanks Don.  I agree 100% with what you say about the potential DWH has, if only it was as easy to create a report as it is to create a simple dashboard in OCI.  I don't want to sound like I'm trolling or being sarcastic here, I WANT to use the data in DWH, but hey, I'm a storage admin, not a SQL developer / Cognos expert.  Trying to create something in Cognos (or even Tableau which makes it a little easier) I'm just a monkey at a keyboard trying to write Shakespeare.  Keep poking at it until a bar graph appears.

How about a dummies guide to DWH?

[dbourque]

I will be responding shortly. Please stand by as the information will take some time to collect for you.

[dbourque]

Hello @CSCOTTENO, My apologies in the delay.

I agree there is a certain level of BI experience required for working with the Data Warehouse (Cognos) authoring tools. I often suggest to people to begin with leveraging some of the 125+ reports already available on the Storefront https://automationstore.netapp.com and to attempt to modify them if necessary in one of the report authoring tools provided by OCI. Myself, I tend to prefer the OCI’s workspace advanced report authoring tool as its more my speed and easier to use. For someone with more SQL skillsets, Report studio would be my recommendation as it provides the ability for complex Joins and merges of data. Just note, that some of the data displayed in reports from store may not be available to be modified in Workspace advanced if it was created using the more advanced report studio capabilities.

There are also a number of “How to” reports on the Automation store to help step users through the process and to become more familiar with some of the drag n drop capabilities around a specific use case. They won’t cover every aspect or usecase but it may be a good starting point.  

As for a dummies guide, I would suggest contacting a member of our Customer Success Program team ( Request Training ) to get added to our complimentary newsletters and how to receive registrations for attend upcoming live Webinars on data warehouse reporting and other features in the product. These webinars are informal by various subject matter experts and technology practitioners and offer opportunities to ask questions.  In the upcoming days we will be posting previously held CSP webinars to our NetApp OnCommand youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/NetAppOnCommand

I hope the above mentioned is helpful.

Best regards,

Don

[CSCOTTENO]

Thank you Don.  I really appreciate the time you took to compile this information.  I will look into it an continue to push up this steep learning curve!