A perspective is one of several different views of an object or group, showing a focused set of information. Each perspective is a page or template, which can be made to appear for many objects, dynamically showing the relevant information. For example, the 'Performance' perspective is one page that appears for all objects, showing the graphs relevant to that object.
In the screenshot below the red box highlights the tabs for changing between perspectives for an Enterprise Application (EA) called 'Sales App':
The first (default) perspective shown is the application perspective, and the user can click on availability to change to the availability perspective.
Perspectives are fully customisable, so you can show several different views of the same object to fulfill the needs of different audiences, such as a specific team, and present the information in a more actionable way for them. For example, a SQL server will have a SQL perspective, as well as Memory, Disk, and Performance perspectives, and you can add a perspective for use by a particular team. Typically a perspective will match a particular management pack, although it doesn't have to.
In contrast to standalone dashboards, perspectives are object-level dashboards. That is, they are dashboards that are shown in the context of a specific object. Perspectives can be created by a SCOM admin for an object such as an application, group or server, and also for an alert, monitor or rule.
Because perspectives have an object context (e.g. the application, group or server) they have a number of advantages over standalone dashboards:
- the overall health state of the object is shown in the title
- users can put the object into maintenance mode
- users can run other tasks against the object
- tiles are automatically scoped to the object (no need to separately scope each tile)
- the user can easily switch to other perspectives for the same object
So the general advice is: if a dashboard is about a specific object (remember that includes applications and groups) then it's probably best to make it a perspective.
You may also like to take a look at the SquaredUp webinar Introduction to Perspectives (32 mins).
Perspective Settings
Target
The real power of perspectives is to create dynamic 'templates' that can be shown for any matching object, but even if you are creating dashboards for a specific application or group it is often better to create these as perspectives. For example, you can create one perspective for a particular Enterprise Application (EA), which then appears for ('targets') all EAs, and dynamically displays the information relevant to each application.
A perspective can be targeted at:
- one object only - the perspective will only be shown for this object, for example one server, a particular SCOM group or Enterprise Application (EA).
- all objects - the perspective will be shown when drilling down on any object.
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members of:
- a group - the perspective will be shown for all members of the chosen group.
- a class - the perspective will be shown for any object of this class (Windows Computer, Logical Disk, IIS Role etc).
To make a perspective show for all EAs add the class Enterprise Application (v1) by clicking in the class box and starting to type Enterprise Application (v1) then selecting it from the list.
The perspective target will only show you the groups and classes that the object you have drilled down to is a member of.
Suppress
Usually all perspectives which match the current object context are shown to the user. The Suppress option allows you to 'suppress' (hide by default) the perspective based on object matching criteria (SquaredUp v4.2 and above). So whilst a perspective might be targeted at all members of a class or group, you can also choose to hide it from a subset of objects. This presents a simpler, tidier perspective ribbon to users, and if required, users can click the show more button on the perspective ribbon to view suppressed perspectives.
Perspective order
The perspective on the far left of the perspective ribbon is the default perspective, the one which is shown first.
To move a perspective to a new position on the ribbon:
- Click on the perspective you wish to move.
- Click on the edit button
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Click on the perspective name on the ribbon and drag it to its new position.
Scoping tiles on perspectives
See How to scope tiles on perspectives
Walkthrough: Viewing and changing perspective settings
- In SquaredUp browse to an Enterprise Application by clicking on Applications > Enterprise Applications and click on one of the EAs at the bottom of the page. If you don't have any Enterprise Applications yet, browse to a server from Overview > Servers.
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Let's take a look at the performance perspective. If necessary, click the show more button on the perspective ribbon to see the performance perspective, and then click on the performance perspective to view it.
- Click the edit button
at the top right of the page. -
Click the settings button
that appears next to the edit button, to view the perspective settings.
- The Title box allows you to change the perspective title. Remember, this perspective probably appears for several objects so the title should not be specific to this object.
- The Target section shows what the perspective is targeted at, in other words, which SCOM objects will show this perspective on their perspective ribbon. The performance perspective shows the target is the class all objects meaning that this perspective will show for all SCOM objects. If you were to look at the components perspective you would see it shows a target of the class Enterprise Application (v1), meaning the components perspective will show for all objects with the class Enterprise Application (v1), in other words all EAs.
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The Suppress section determines whether the perspective is hidden for any objects.
On a fresh install of SquaredUp v4.2 and above the performance and monitored entity perspectives are hidden by default for Enterprise Applications. This presents a simpler view to users, while they can still click the show more button on the perspective ribbon to see any suppressed (hidden by default) perspectives.
If SquaredUp has been upgraded from an earlier version, perspective suppression (hiding by default) will still be available, but no perspectives will be pre-configured as suppressed.
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If the perspective is not currently suppressed for any objects, you can click Suppress this perspective (hide by default) to choose how to hide this perspective. The scoping selection will automatically pick a class to match the perspective. If you are viewing an EA then the class shown is Enterprise Application (v1), so you can click add to hide this performance perspective for all EAs.
Only classes applicable to the object being viewed are available, so you need to be viewing an EA to suppress the performance perspective for the Enterprise Application (v1) class.
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If you have made a change to the perspective it will show as draft. To publish the changes click the unpublished changes button at the top of the screen, then click publish to make the changes live.
Creating a new perspective
For more information about creating new perspectives, including a walkthrough of creating a new perspective for an Enterprise Application, see How to create a perspective
FAQs and Troubleshooting
Can I convert a dashboard to a perspective?
If you have a standalone dashboard that is a good candidate for becoming a perspective, you can convert it quite simply using the Convert to perspective button
I have duplicates of some perspectives on the perspective ribbon, what can I do?
This can happen if the same dashboard pack is imported more than once. The easiest way to resolve this is to delete the duplicate perspectives from SquaredUp. Make sure you have a backup of SquaredUp, because this can't be undone, then click on a duplicated perspective, click the edit button at the top right of the page, and then click the delete button.
How do perspectives relate to how I used to use SquaredUp v2?
- In SquaredUp v2 when you drill down to an object you have one page showing a generic object view, for example all the information about a server. In v2 you might have created your own drilldown page, in SquaredUp v4 you now have several perspectives, each with a different focus.
- A perspective can work in a similar way to the v2 page scope, allowing you to have several tiles scoped to the object you are viewing.
- The Monitored Entity perspective gives you a view very similar to the v2 server page.
- The Performance perspective is similar to the view performance page in v2.
- Perspectives replace the v2 favorite metrics.