Summary:
We have created a custom "Shift Turnover Report" that leverages NPM's Home/Alerts tab. When a alert is received, a trouble ticket is created with a descriptive subject line. That subject line is then pasted into the alert as an acknowledgement comment. The custom report is very useful, it is used as a tool to hand off known issues of nodes/devices down to the next shift. When alerts clear they disappear off the report. It is a live report where management can pull up the report and see what is currently down "at the moment" for the enterprise. The report is kept current by viewing all alerts along with those that have been acknowledged "and" updated with the most recent status: This has its problems. When typing into the comment field, text is not remembered like in a browser, text has to be retyped. Often one ticket subject line is used to comment/acknowledge numerous alarms.
Suggestion:
- Create a new report template that is a "Turnover Report" that is built to work with an "Enhanced Alerts Tab".
- Build enhanced editing features into the Alerts tab in NPM to work directly with the new/above "Shift Turnover Report". Having features of; past typing is remembered similar to a WEB browser.
- A feature that allows the selection of numerous acknowledged alarms that can "update" numerous subject lines at once on previously acknowledged alerts.
- Add a 2nd comment field. This being used to add sub comments to alert acknowledgements. The sub comment field used for adding comments about the specific device. Thus primary comment field used for "Building XXX down", sub comment routerXXX down. Example/Point: The "Building XXX down" comment can be updated for all devices at once once status changes.
- A third new field for only trouble ticket numbers. Thus useful to managers reviewing trouble tickets, looking at exact outage times/MTTR's and how operations can improve.