How to use the Monitors tile

About the Monitors tile

The Monitors tile displays the health state of monitors that use the object in the scope as their target.

The Monitors tile can be used on a dashboard or a perspective

What are monitors?

Monitors are used in SCOM to determine health information and make sure items are working within predefined thresholds. When a threshold is hit the monitor can raise an alert, and the monitor can change the health state of an object. Rules can also raise alerts, but cannot change the health state of an object.

Rule alerts vs. monitor alerts

Users may not be aware of the differences between monitor and rule alerts, and that monitor alerts should not be closed. Dashboard Server uses different alert icons for rule and monitor alerts to help users be more aware of these differences.

Monitor alerts

Monitor alerts are shown by a solid icon (like the health state icon, but round) to indicate that the alert is affecting the health state of the object, because the alert has been raised by a monitor.

A monitor alert is 'stateful' and therefore current. A monitor changes the state of the monitor, which then triggers an alert. This means that if the monitor alert is still visible, then it is still a current issue. Once action has been taken, a user can click the reset monitor button to force SCOM to reevaluate the health of the object, and if the issue is re-detected then the alert will be reopened. When the issue is resolved the alert will be closed automatically, so monitor alerts should not be closed manually.

 

When changing the resolution stateclosed is not the default option, and if a user tries to close a monitor alert a warning is shown and confirmation is required.

Monitor alerts are used to show How to use the Monitors tile for unhealthy objects in Dashboard Server.

Rule alerts

A rule can trigger an alert, but not change the state of the object, or rollup to the parent. A rule alert shows that something has happened in the past, but it won't necessarily happen again. If the issue reoccurs, then the alert RepeatCount increases. Rule alerts should be closed manually when the issue has been resolved.

Rule alerts are shown by a hollow icon (that’s different from the health state icon) the alert is not affecting the health state of the object because it has been raised by a rule. Rule alerts should be closed manually by clicking the resolution state button.

Summary of the differences between rule and monitor alerts

Monitor alerts	Rule alerts
Stateful	Non-stateful
‘There is a problem’	‘There was a problem’
Affects health state of object	Does not affect health state of object
Rollup health to parent object	Does not rollup health to parent object
Changes health state of dashboard	Does not change health state of dashboard
Creates alert (normally)	Creates alert (normally)
Alert stays open while issue remains	RepeatCount incremented if issue reoccurs
Closes alert automatically (normally)	Does not close alert automatically
Can be manually reset back to healthy	Cannot be reset (no state)
Alerts should not be closed manually	Alerts should be closed manually

 

There are a three types of monitors in SCOM:

• Unit monitors - measure something, such as how much free disk space there is on drive C:
• Dependency rollup monitors - used for rolling up the health state of members to the group health state (see Groups show no health information).
• Aggregate rollup monitors are not displayed by the Monitors tile.

Monitors states

Green	Healthy
Yellow	Warning For example, a monitor might be configured so that when a disk goes below 10% free space the monitor goes yellow and an alert is raised.
Red	Critical If the free space goes below 5% the monitor may be configured to go red, and a critical alert be raised.
Gray	Unknown/uninitialized A gray circle shows that this monitor does not currently have a health state.

How to configure a Monitors tile

1. Add a new tile to a dashboard or perspective and choose the Monitors tile.

   

2. Choose the visualization for your Monitors tile:

   Monitors Icons

   Shows monitor icons.

   

   Monitors Blocks

   The Blocks visualization is a simple way to build high impact dashboards, and is perfect for wall monitors or to grab attention.

   

3. Scope:

   The Monitors tile will display monitors that target the class of object you use in the scope. You will need to specify the correct object in the scope in order to see the monitors you want. If the monitor you want is not shown, check the configuration of the monitor in SCOM, and look at the monitor target.

   The Monitors tile will only display Unit monitors and Dependency rollup monitors.

   If you want to display only one particular monitor, use the scope > list option and enter the name of one object, such as a server or database, then in monitors > filter type the name of the monitor to display.

   Scope options on dashboards

   Tip: If you experience any problems with scoping tiles, you'll find FAQs and help in the article How to scope tiles.

   List	List allows you to select one or more objects or groups. You can add multiple objects and groups. To remove an object or group click the x to the right of its name. Tip: Start typing and after two characters you'll see suggestions that match the name appear. Tips for using wildcards when searching for objects or groups By default searching will look for the top 10 items containing the words listed in the search. If you wish to create a more specific search you will need to use wildcards (*). If you place a wildcard after the term you are looking for, it will find all the objects which start with that word searched and any terms that may follow. If you place a wildcard at the start of the search term, it will look for objects that contain the searched word and also have terms before that word. If you enclose your searched term in wildcards it will look for objects which contain the searched word, this object will not begin or end with the term searched.
   Group	Group allows you to select members of a specific group. Only one group can be selected.
   Advanced	Advanced allows you to select a group, class or both. You must at least define either a group or class. You can define both. You can also use criteria to narrow down your selection. Group: Same as the group option above. Class: Class equates to the target class within SCOM. As you type the dropdown will be populated with suggestions of matching classes from SCOM, from which you can select the required class. Criteria: Criteria allows you to create an expression to further refine the scope.
   Examples for commonly used criteria Objects you would like to see Criteria Objects with particular text in their name DisplayName like '%Server1%' Objects starting with a particular string DisplayName like 'test%' All objects in maintenance mode InMaintenanceMode = 'TRUE' Only healthy objects HealthState = 1 Objects with a health state in SCOM of 0, an unknown health state (uninitialized), a gray health state icon with a question mark. HealthState = 0 Objects that are not healthy HealthState != 1 Objects in critical state HealthState = 3 Objects in critical or warning state HealthState = 2 or HealthState = 3 To show all gray uninitialised objects HealthState = 0 OR HealthState IS NULL All objects not in maintenance mode InMaintenanceMode != 'TRUE' Objects where the parent agent is offline IsAvailable='false' Objects that are offline, in maintenance or state unknown IsAvailable='false' OR InMaintenanceMode=1 OR HealthState=0 Computers with a particular OS OSVersion = '6.3.9600' List objects by name and filter by HealthState (Name like '%Server3%' OR Name like '%Server4%' OR Name like '%Server2%') AND HealthState=3 List objects by SCOM Id and filter by HealthState Id IN ('7021174b-9e5d-5fbf-878a-42b9f0bf6f4a', '9bd4a1cc-f07a-0e36-b37d-d9ee974e0f3c') AND HealthState=3 Exclude object from the Group specified DisplayName not like '%server3%' Exclude objects from the Group specified (DisplayName NOT LIKE '%server3%') AND (DisplayName NOT LIKE '%server4%') For more information see: How to use criteria when scoping objects How to use criteria when scoping alerts

   Scope options on perspectives

   Note: If you never used a perspective, you should read Working with perspectives before scoping tiles on perspectives.

   The power of perspectives is that tiles on a perspective can use a dynamic scope. A dynamic scope considers the currently viewed object. A dynamic scope consists of two different states:

   • the configuration of the scope in the tile (for example, "consider child objects of type logical disk for the currently viewed object")

   • the actual resolved scope that depends on which object you are currently viewing ("this object has 5 child objects of type logical disk")

   After configuring the dynamic scope once in the tile, you'll get different results depending how the scope is resolved on the different objects you are viewing.

   Suggestions

   Suggestions are generated based on the object you are currently viewing. You'll see a list of relevant scope options based on the object's relations to other objects. Suggestions don't cover every possible scope, but they are a quick and easy way to select a suitable scope for your tile.

   Note: Suggestions won't be shown if an object has no children, parents or siblings.

   Tip: If the exact scope you want isn't listed in the suggestions, you can select a suggested scope that is similar to the one you want, and then click on custom. The custom section will now automatically be filled with the suggestion you picked and you can edit the scope here to adjust it exactly to your needs. This is a more intuitive way to pick a scope than starting in the custom section and navigating the SCOM object model for classes and groups.

   Double-check the scope when using suggestions: Using suggestions is an easy way to pick a scope, but you need to make sure that the generated suggestion is appropriate for all objects that use the perspective.
   For example, when you pick a suggestion for an EA, you will get suggestions that are specific to the map, dependencies, and availability tests for this one EA. On perspectives you want to use for all EAs, you have to change the scope suggestion in the custom section so that the tile work for all EAs.

   Walkthrough: Editing a scope suggestion to make it work for all EAs

   Enterprise Applications are designed so that you can map out the servers that make up the application. You can then configure tiles to show information related to just the servers on the EA's map. When you create a perspective that will be used for all EAs, you need to make sure that you scope the tiles so that they work for any EA. When you start with a suggestion, the tile's scope only works for the one EA you're currently looking at, and this is why you need to edit the scope:

   1. For an EA you want to scope to the servers that are specified on the EA map by selecting something from the suggestions (Dashboard Server 4.2 and above) that shows something similar to the following:

      This /<YourApplicationName> Map / ... / Windows Computer

      The above will scope the tile to all the objects of class Windows Computer on this EAs map.

      The screenshot below shows some scope suggestions for an application called FinanceXS. The bold text shows the currently selected scope is This object. The cursor shows the option This / FinanceXS / ... / Windows Computer. Once chosen this scope will show all the Windows computers shown on the applications map.

      

      Next, we need to adjust the specified scope to allow it to work for all EAs, rather than just this one.

   2. In the scope section click custom.

   3. Click on the text <YourApplicationName> Map (children) which is your first scope step. This will expand the scope step so you can edit it.

      

   4. Remove the auto-populated class <YourApplicationName> Map by clicking the cross x next to it.

      

   5. Start typing Enterprise Application - Map and select this from the list to add this class. This is so that this tile scope will work for all EAs, rather than just this one EA.

      

   6. The scope is now configured to show all the Windows computers on the EA's map, whichever EA you happen to be viewing with the perspective.

   How to read the suggestions

   You can pick between "this object" and objects that are related to this object as parents, children or siblings. The suggestions for children are written as paths that follow the SCOM object tree structure, parents and siblings can be identified by the word parent or sibling in the suggestion.

   A parent of an object is any object that hosts or contains that object.
   A child of an object is any object that this object hosts or contains.
   A sibling of an object is any object of the same class that is hosted by the same parent.

   This object	The dynamic scope will be resolved to the object currently viewed. "this object" option which does NOT mean the actual one object like for the target setting but the relative object I'm looking at
   This / child / child / class of object	The dynamic scope will be resolved to children of the object currently viewed. You select objects of a particular class that are contained in path. The class of the objects you are selecting is stated at the end of the path.
   This / *	The dynamic scope will be resolved to children of the object currently viewed. If a path ends with a wildcard (*) it means that you select all objects of any class within the path. Technically it means that we fill the class field with the class "logical entity" since every object in SCOM has this class, it is a "base" class Example: This / IIS Web Server / * selects all objects of any class in the level below This / IIS Web Server.
   This / child / ... / class of object	The dynamic scope will be resolved to children of the object currently viewed. If a path contains an ellipsis (...) it means that you select objects of a particular class that are contained in all of the objects that are contained in the path preceding the ellipsis. The class of the objects you are selecting is stated at the end of the path. Example: This / Sales App Map / ... / Windows Computer selects all objects of the class Windows Computer in the This / Sales App Map path.
   Parent class of object	The dynamic scope will be resolved to parents of the object currently viewed.
   Sibling class of object	The dynamic scope will be resolved to siblings of the object currently viewed.
   Show more triangle next to a suggestion	You can click the show more triangle to expand the list of suggestions and see more specific paths.

   Example for navigating suggestions in an EA

   If you are looking at an EA, the path to find all windows computers in that EA may read Map / ... / Windows Computer. It returns all objects of the Windows Computer class contained within all of the paths under Map.

   To narrow the scope down, you can click on the triangle to expand the suggestion and select one of the more specific paths. If you select Map / Web / Windows Computer you will find all objects of the Windows Computer class in the path Map / Web.

   If you choose the option Map / * you'll find all objects contained in the map. If you extend this suggestion by clicking on the triangle, you'll see suggestions to select all objects in a more specific path, for example Map / Web / *.

   

   Custom

   Here you can pick objects that are related to the object you are currently looking at. If you want to create a specific scope that is not listed under suggestions, you can create the scope here.

   Tip: You can pick a similar scope under suggestions first and then click on custom to edit it.

   How to pick a simple relation (one step through the SCOM model)

   1. At the top, you'll see the name of the object you are currently looking at. Now you can choose if you want to pick parents or children of that object, and if this parent or child relation should be considered only one level up or down the SCOM model or through all levels.

   2. Class:

      Here you pick the class of the objects you want to select. If you leave this field empty, the scope falls back to the "this object" scope.

      Note: You will only see groups and classes that the object you are currently looking at is a member of.

      Tip: If you want to pick objects of any class, enter the SCOM base class logical entity in the class field.

      Tip: If you want to find out what classes the object you are interested in belongs to, you can go to the Monitored Entity perspective of that object. You'll see all the classes the object belongs to listed there.

   3. Criteria:

      You can narrow the selection of objects of a particular class down further by entering criteria for those objects. For more help see How to use criteria when scoping objects.

      Tip: If you want to find out what properties you can base your criteria on, you can go to the Monitored Entity perspective of the object you are interested in. You'll see all the properties for criteria listed there.

   .

   Example for picking a simple relation

   For example, for a perspective created for the group IIS8 Computer Group adding a Status tile scoped to show children with a class of object will show the group members, i.e. the members of the IIS8 Computer Group.

   

   How to pick advanced relations (multiple steps through the SCOM model)

   If you need to traverse a more advanced SCOM object model like an EA, you can use the + button to add more steps. This creates a scope that can go through any kind of path of the SCOM object model.

   Complete the following steps and then click the + button after you're done to add the next level of SCOM objects:

   1. At the top, you'll see the name of the object you are currently looking at. Now you can choose if you want to pick parents or children of that object, and if this parent or child relation should be considered only one level up or down the SCOM model or through all levels.

   2. Class:

      Here you pick the class of the objects you want to select. If you leave this field empty, the scope falls back to the "this object" scope.

      Note: You will only see groups and classes that the object you are currently looking at is a member of.

      Tip: If you want to pick objects of any class, enter the SCOM base class logical entity in the class field.

      Tip: If you want to find out what classes the object you are interested in belongs to, you can go to the Monitored Entity perspective of that object. You'll see all the classes the object belongs to listed there.

   3. Criteria:

      You can narrow the selection of objects of a particular class down further by entering criteria for those objects. For more help see How to use criteria when scoping objects.

      Tip: If you want to find out what properties you can base your criteria on, you can go to the Monitored Entity perspective of the object you are interested in. You'll see all the properties for criteria listed there.

   .

   Other specific objects

   Gives you the normal, non-dynamic scope options you are used to when scoping tiles on dashboards. This means the tile will not dynamically adapt it's content to the currently viewed object, it will always show data for the static object picked here.

   Since the power of perspectives is that their tiles can show data for different objects depending on what object is currently being viewed, you should only select this option when you are sure that there is no relationship between the desired scope and the currently viewed object.

   Notes for selecting the scope for Status Icons or Blocks

   Which status is displayed depends on what you choose as a scope:

   • If you want to see the status of individual objects (for example, two individual servers), select multiple objects in the list section.

   • If you want to see the status of a group itself rather than the individual objects within the group, select a group in the list section.

   • If you want to see the status of each individual group member of a group, select a group in the group section.

   • If you want to see the health state of all groups, select the class "group" in the advanced section.

4. Monitors:

   Here you can filter the monitors if you only want to display specific monitors. Start typing the name of the monitor you want to display in the choose monitors field to get suggestions for matching monitors.

5. Filters:

   Here you can filter the monitors to specific health states. By default, all health states will be shown. Click on one of the health states to hide monitors with this state.

6. Only for Monitor Icons: You can change the way the icons are displayed by using the toggle zoom button at the top right of the tile. You can toggle between list, column and tile view.

   

7. Only for Monitor Blocks: You can change the way blocks are displayed in the following panels:

   Blocks

   Here you can change how many columns are used to display the blocks, their height, and the font size of the labels on the blocks.

   Label

   Allows you to change the label of the results.

   none	Use no label.
   name	Use the monitor's name as the label.
   description	Use the monitor's description as the label.
   custom	Here you can change the label to a custom label. You can use static text and dynamic properties. Use the mustache picker to select dynamic properties from the response data to use them as labels. For more information see How to use Custom Labels Important note if you are using external API properties with hyphens for custom labels (Web API tile, Elasticsearch tile, Splunk tile) Property names that contain hyphens (for example properties.name-with-hyphens) can't be processed due to a JavaScript limitation. If you want to use a property that contains a hyphen, you have two options: If you have access to the data source and can change the name of the property, change the name of the property to a name without hyphens. For example, if your Elasticsearch query uses a property (an aggregation, a grouping or any other property you want to use) with a name that contains a hyphen, you can either access your Elasticsearch instance and change the name there or you can overwrite the name in the query dsl field. If you can't change the name of the property, you need to enter the property name in the following format: Original property name: {{properties.name-with-hyphens.value}} New format: {{properties['name-with-hyphens'].value}}

   Sublabel

   Allows you to add a sublabel of the results.

   custom

   Here you can change the label to a custom label. You can use static text and dynamic properties. Use the mustache picker to select dynamic properties from the response data to use them as labels. For more information see How to use Custom Labels Important note if you are using external API properties with hyphens for custom labels (Web API tile, Elasticsearch tile, Splunk tile) Property names that contain hyphens (for example properties.name-with-hyphens) can't be processed due to a JavaScript limitation. If you want to use a property that contains a hyphen, you have two options: If you have access to the data source and can change the name of the property, change the name of the property to a name without hyphens. For example, if your Elasticsearch query uses a property (an aggregation, a grouping or any other property you want to use) with a name that contains a hyphen, you can either access your Elasticsearch instance and change the name there or you can overwrite the name in the query dsl field. If you can't change the name of the property, you need to enter the property name in the following format: Original property name: {{properties.name-with-hyphens.value}} New format: {{properties['name-with-hyphens'].value}}

   none

   By default, no sublabels are shown.

Walkthrough: Adding Monitors tiles to a dashboard

1. In Dashboard Server browse to an object whose monitor(s) you would like to add to a tile. For this walkthrough, search or browse for a database.

2. Click on the Monitored Entity perspective to view the list of monitors available.

   

3. In another tab (perhaps duplicate the tab) browse in Dashboard Server to where you'd like the new dashboard to be created. Hover over the + button and click dashboard.

4. Give the dashboard a title, by replacing the text that says New Dashboard.

   The dashboard is saved as you go along so there's no need to save your changes. You can find your dashboard by clicking on the right-hand menu ☰ > system > unpublished.

5. A new tile has already been added to the dashboard. Edit the title by overwriting the placeholder value New tile with your own tile title, such as the name of the database.
6. First, we will add a single Monitors tile, using the Icons visualization. The tile selector will already be open. Click Monitors.

7. Click on the Icons button.
   

   

8. Next, we need to scope the tile. In the scope section select list then type the name of the object for which you wish to see the monitors, and then click on object from the results. For this walkthrough add the database that you browsed to in step 1.

   Monitors will only be shown that use the object in the scope as their target. SquaredUp supports Unit and Dependency rollup monitor types only. Aggregate rollup monitors, such as the entity health monitor, will not display.

   Monitor icons should appear after a moment. You could stop here, but we'll continue to configure the tile.

9. In the monitors section click on filter.

10. In the choose monitors box type any word from the name of the monitor that you want to display. Click on the monitor in the list displayed. If you wish you can type a new search word and select more than one monitor to display.

    

11. Click next and leave the filters section as it is.

12. Click done and your Monitors Icons tile will look something like this:

    

    Next, we will add a Monitor Blocks tile to the dashboard to show several monitors.

13. Click on the orange plus button to add another tile to the dashboard.

14. Click on the Blocks button to create a Monitors Blocks tile.

    

15. In the scope section type the database name into the list box.

    Blocks should appear after a moment. You could stop here, but we'll continue to configure the tile.

16. In the monitors section leave it set to all.
17. In the filters section click on uninitialized to remove gray uninitialized monitors.

18. In the blocks section you can change the number of columns, the block height, as well as the font size. This can be useful when creating a dashboard for a wall monitor.

    

19. The label and sublabel sections allow you to change the block labeling or even create a custom label (How to use Custom Labels). We're going to leave these as they are for this walkthrough.

20. Click done and your Monitors Blocks tile will look something like this: