What's New in SquaredUp DS for SCOM

See also: Release Notes for SquaredUp DS for SCOM

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What's new in v6.5

SquaredUp DS for SCOM v6.5 includes the following new features:

  • New customizable branding (EAM tier or above)
  • Grid visualization improvements
  • Value formatter

Branding (EAM tier or above)

You can customize SquaredUp by changing the SquaredUp branding to your own company's branding for all users. From System > Branding there are three images you can change, the home button, the logon box image and logon page background.

Most image formats are accepted, .jpg, .png .SVG etc.

See Branding

Grid visualization improvements

It is now possible to use custom colors on grid visualizations, using conditional formatting to control when each color is shown as either the text or background color. Along with this grid columns can now be sorted effectively, once the data type is set.

Example of the time data type. Click to view fullsize.

See Grid visualization

Value formatter

The value formatter allows you to use mustache notation to format y-axis numbers, so you can control the number of decimal places shown.

See Performance tile

Download now & more information

To get started see How to install SquaredUp DS for SCOM.

Get the latest version of SquaredUp DS for SCOM

Read the Release Notes for SquaredUp DS for SCOM for details on other improvements in this release.

If you have an earlier version of DS for SCOM already installed, then the installer will upgrade your installation, see How to upgrade SquaredUp DS for SCOM

What's new in v6.4

SquaredUp DS for SCOM v6.4 includes the following new features:

New SquaredUp Cloud provider and tile

SquaredUp Cloud tiles offer you an easy way to display any tile from your SquaredUp Cloud instance in a SquaredUp DS dashboard.

The new SquaredUp Cloud provider and tile allow you to embed SquaredUp Cloud tiles in SquaredUp DS. This compliments the EAM-X Extension Management pack, which allows you to visualize health states and trigger alerts for objects discovered in SquaredUp Cloud.

The new SquaredUp Cloud Provider on the Integrations page, allows you to connect to a Cloud tenant by specifying a tenant name, region and API key.
To embed a SquaredUp Cloud tile in your DS dashboard, select Integrations > SquaredUp Cloud tile when adding an tile to a dashboard. Select the provider you created and you can then search for the cloud tile you want to embed.

See SquaredUp Cloud provider and SquaredUp Cloud tile

New Matrix tile editor

The long awaited editor for the Matrix tile and row perspectives is here! Previously, the only way to customize the columns was by editing the JSON.

Now, the custom option on the columns tab of the Matrix tile editor has been revamped, allowing you to easily customize your Matrix tiles on the fly through a new user interface - where you can add, edit and delete the columns for your Matrix tile without needing to enter any code.

You can switch back to the classic JSON editor by clicking the Edit JSON

button.

The new editor allows you to select from a list of visualizations, and then configure the parameters.
See How to configure a Matrix tile

Saved row perspectives can also be cloned, edited, created and deleted from the new Matrix Rows tab of the System page. This tab displays each of your row perspectives and allows you to edit them in the user interface, rather than having to locate and edit the JSON files.

See How to create and modify Matrix row perspectives

Message broadcasting system

Broadcast allows you to display a message at the top of all dashboards which will be seen by any active users. This enables you to easily notify users of any updates or known issues, such as planned or even unplanned system outages.

To support this feature, a new Broadcast tab has been added to the menu
> System page. From here you can write your broadcast in markdown and optionally set an end time for the message.
For more information see Broadcast.

Execute SCOM task on multiple objects

It is now possible to run Tasks against multiple objects on Status Donut, Alert Donut, Alert Heatmap and Alert Scalar drilldowns.

A copy button is available to optionally copy the SCOM tasks' output to the clipboard for further processing in a separate application. The tasks list returns only tasks which can be run against all the objects in the scope.

See How to run SCOM tasks

SCOM task interval and caching

Previously, tasks configured with the SCOM Task tile would run every time a dashboard refreshed, which wasn't always what was wanted.

Now, you can manually define an interval for how often a SCOM Task tile runs under the new task execution interval option in the task config. Configuring this option for a tile enables it be refreshed outside of the default dashboard refresh and lets you set a minimum time between runs.

To support this feature, caching has been added to all task tile results, so that identical tasks with the same configuration now return cached result across any number of dashboards and users. This also ensures that identical custom tasks across any number of dashboards never refresh more often than the specified value.

See SCOM Task tile

Ability to add a new tile above another

It is now possible to add a tile above another, rather than just adding a full new row above. Previously, when editing a row of tiles that had multiple columns you could add new tiles to the left of, right of and below a tile, but there was no way to insert a new tile above it.

PowerShell 7.4.6 upgrade needs .NET Core 8.0

PowerShell 7.2 reaches an end of support in November 2024, so we've upgraded to PowerShell 7.4.6. If you choose to use .NET Core in your PowerShell tiles you will need to install .NET Core 8.0.

What's New in v6.3

SquaredUp DS for SCOM v6.3 includes the following new features:

  • New Markdown tile
  • Alert tile new Scalar visualization
  • Scheduled maintenance mode
  • EA management pack descriptions
  • Tear-off tiles

New Markdown tile

A new Markdown tile has been added which allows you to add richer content to your dashboards such as links, lists, images and more! You can add Markdown tiles to any dashboard or perspective.

The tile supports "basic" Markdown syntax, see the Markdown guide for reference.

Select the Markdown icon to start configuring the tile.

To configure the tile, simply enter or paste your markdown into the markdown field.

For examples see Markdown tile.

Alert tile scalar visualization

A new Scalar tile type has been added to the Alert tile, allowing you to display the number of alerts as text.

When selecting the new Alert tile, the standard tile configuration options display, allowing you to configure the scope and filters for the alerts.

Likewise, the scalar settings can also be configured, including setting the color for the visualization.

After saving the tile, you can click the scalar number visualization to display a list of the alert objects.

For more information see: Alerts tile

Scheduled Maintenance Mode

SCOM Maintenance mode allows you to set a SCOM object to a suppressed state, allowing you to complete work on the object without additional alerts and errors being generated.

Previously, while SCOM supported both active and scheduled maintenance modes, SquaredUp only supported active maintenance mode.

Now, this feature has been expanded with the introduction of scheduled maintenance mode in SquaredUp - giving you the ability to set a start time and duration to place objects in maintenance mode and bringing the functionality in line with SCOM.

Scheduled maintenance is managed through several new maintenance windows accessed via various object drilldowns in the product.

New features include:

  • Creating new windows
  • Editing existing windows
  • Ending existing windows
  • Creating new schedules
  • Editing existing schedules
  • Enabling / disabling existing schedules
  • Deleting existing schedules

When you click the Maintenance mode button on an object drilldown, the following window displays:

If you want to extend a running schedule for all objects, simply click the Edit button in the table. You can then update the end time or duration, as when editing a schedule in SCOM.

Active maintenance

The Active section of the Maintenance Mode window displays your active maintenance instances for the object.

Click the New button in this section to display the New Maintenance Mode window, where you can create a non-scheduled maintenance instance.

Scheduled maintenance

The Schedules section of the Maintenance Mode window displays your scheduled maintenance instances for the object.

Click the New button in this section to display the New Schedule window, where you can create a scheduled maintenance instance. When defining a maintenance schedule, you can set options such as the start date, start time and frequency for when maintenance mode is active.

Settings page

Additionally, a Scheduled Maintenance tab has been added to the System page, which displays all of your created maintenance schedules and allows you to Edit or Disable them as required.

EA management pack descriptions

You can now add a description to a management pack during Enterprise Application creation, bringing them in line with SCOM functionality. These descriptions can be viewed on the EAM tab of the System page.

Tear-off tiles

You can now click the new Copy an Open Access URL button for an individual tile (that has open access enabled) and then render that tile in the browser when the URL is visited. The URL can also be pasted into the URL field of the Edit embed tile window to render that tile elsewhere in the application.

Additionally, this feature allows URLs for individual tiles to be copied and pasted into iframe tiles or similar in SquaredUp Cloud or some other custom intranet application.

Limitations for this feature are as follows:

  • Tiles accessed by a URL will not work if open access is disabled on the parent dashboard. They will start working again if it is re-enabled.
  • Tile URLs will no longer be valid if the tile on the parent dashboard is modified - a new URL needs to be copied in this case.
  • Tiles do not update themselves in the background.
  • Pinned Perspectives in Open Access mode do not support this feature.

For more information see: How to share an individual tile (Tear off tiles)

What's New in v6.2

SquaredUp DS for SCOM v6.2 includes the following new features:

  • Matrix tile improvements:
    • Matrix tile persisting column sorting
    • Matrix cell tile type for scalar performance
  • Alerts tile improvements:
    • Alerts tile new Task buttons
    • Alert donut custom grouping
    • Alerts donut sort panel
    • Bulk update alert ticket IDs without drilling down
    • Automatically assign hyperlink to alert Alert tile ticket ID
    • Alerts tile diagnostic row visualisation
  • Donut drilldown improvements
  • Tile fullscreen mode
  • Ability to rename providers

Matrix Tile Improvements

Matrix tile persistent column sorting

You can sort the data in Matrix tiles by column by clicking the corresponding column heading. However, previously this sorting order was reset whenever you reloaded the tile or page, meaning you had to re-sort the tile each time you navigated away.

Now, the column sort order of Matrix tiles is persistent, so that the sorting order is retained whenever you reload the page or tile.

Matrix new celltile type of scalar

Matrix tiles allow you to display rows of data with different visualizations in each celltile. These columns can be customized by modifying the predefined row perspective in a JSON editor.

Now, a new scalar celltile type has been added to matrix tiles, which allows you to visualize data as text. 

{
        "title": "% Memory Used",
        "_type": "celltile/scalar",
        "config": {
            "source": {
                "objectname": "Memory",
                "countername": "PercentMemoryUsed"
            }
        }
    }

Alerts Tile Improvements

Alerts tile new Task buttons

Previously, to run a task on an alert in SquaredUp you had to select first select an alert from an alerts list, then select the alert, then select the object on the alert before clicking the Task button.

Now, setting a task for an alert object in SquaredUp has been streamlined with the addition of two new Task buttons, added in the following locations:

  • The alerts tile, adjacent the alert Description when selecting an object from the list. Click this button to select the execution of a task on a monitored object for the Alert. (SQ-4764)
  • To the SCOM Alert perspective. Click this button to select the execution of a task on a monitored object for the alert row and inline output / error. (SQ-3198)

Alerts donut custom grouping

Previously, only the severity, priority and resolution state properties were exposed on the grouping tab of the alerts donut tile.

Now, the full list of alert grouping properties are available, including the custom alert fields that are provided by System Center Operations Manager.

Alerts donut sort panel

A sort panel has now been added to the alert donut tile, bringing it in line with the rest of the donut tiles in SquaredUp.

Bulk update alert ticket IDs without drilling down

Previously, updating ticket IDs for alerts required you to navigate to an alert's drilldown page, which also meant that ticket IDs could only be updated for one alert at a time.

Now, it is possible to update update ticket IDs for multiple alerts at a time directly from the alerts tile.

To update ticket IDs from the alerts tile, simply select the check box next to the alerts you want to update, then select the update ticket id option and enter the ticket ID below.

Automatically assign hyperlink to alert Alert tile ticket ID

Now, when an external ticket hyperlink is configuredthe corresponding alert's ticket ID is automatically hyperlinked in the Alert list tile TicketId column and the alert donut / heatmap drilldown pages.

Alerts tile diagnostic row visualisation

A new diagnostics row visualization has been added to the alerts tile donut and heatmap, which displays in the Monitored Object section when expanding the alert detail.

Donut drilldown improvements

Clicking the centre (total) value on SCOM Alert, SCOM Status and ServiceNow Donut tiles now takes you to a drilldown page of all objects or alerts (for SCOM Status and Alerts donut tiles), or to a list of all incidents / change requests in the ServiceNow portal for ServiceNow donut tiles.

Tile fullscreen mode

You can now view tiles in fullscreen mode by clicking the new Full-screen view button, which is displayed when hovering on a tile.

Clicking this button opens a copy of the tile in a larger window, providing you with a clearer sized view of an otherwise small tile area.

As fullscreen mode displays a copy of the tile, settings such as sorted headers do not persist when opening or closing the view.

To exit fullscreen mode, do one of the following:

  • Click the Close button in the top-right of the window.
  • Press the ESC key
  • Press the TAB + ENTER keys.

Export tile data

Additionally, a new Export to Excel button has been added to the top-right of the fullscreen mode window for supported tiles. Click this button to export the data for the expanded tile to a Microsoft Excel document.

Rename providers

Providers contain the connection details to external platforms and are maintained in ☰ > system > Integrations.

Previously, if you wanted to rename a provider it had to be deleted and then a new one had to be created with a new name.

Now, you can rename a provider by simply selecting it on the Integrations page and editing the name field.

What's New in v6.1

SquaredUp DS for SCOM v6.1 includes the following new features:

  • 24-hour time format option
  • Trend lines in time-series graphs
  • EAM-X alert description improvements
  • Undo/redo for draft dashboard editing
  • Performance drill-down page improvements
  • Many more improvements

24 hour time format option

Previously, times were only displayed using a 12 hour clock format (for example, 9AM, 12PM, 1PM etc.). Now, you can choose to display times across the application in a 24 hour format (for example, 9:00, 21:00, 13:00 etc.), giving you greater flexibility in how you present your data.

Trend lines in time-series graphs

You now have the ability to display trend lines in time-series graphs across the application, enhancing your ability to analyze changes across your data. This feature can be toggled at tile-level on the display panel in the tile's configuration settings.

EAM-X alert description improvements

Alert descriptions have been improved to give the customer more context on what has gone wrong, without always needing to drill into SquaredUp DS for SCOM cloud to see more (for example, alerts can now pass through the actual error messages and information on breached thresholds).

Undo / redo option when editing dashboard drafts

Undo / Redo buttons have been added to the dashboard edit view. Whenever you make a change, you can now use these buttons to step back and forward through the changes you make.

Performance drill-down page improvements

The Performance tile drill down view also benefits from the enhancements brought by the addition of Trend lines in time-series graphs. If enabled at the tile-level, trend lines are shown on the drill down. Trend lines can now also be toggled locally from within the drill down via the new Trends option in the Settings panel, however this option is not persisted when leaving the drill down view.

Similarly, you can now also select to display horizontal lines across your graphs to now the maximum, minimum, and average values for that data. These lines can be toggled via the new max, min and avg options.

New Data Rangeoptions have also been added to the Settings panel of the drill down, which let you refine the y axis of the graph for each drill down session. As with the newTrends option, this setting is local to the drill down view and is not persistent.

Additionally, where previously selecting the CUSTOM time-series option would display the custom time field under the ribbon and push the graph down, this field now appears adjacent to the CUSTOMoption when selected so that the graph is not disturbed.

Auditing improvements

The auditing feature has been enhanced with the following features that improve the user experience:

  • You now have the ability to filter folders.
  • You can now filter on multiple types of event at the same time (for example, Dashboard moved + Team Folders modified).
  • Previously, you had to scope via the filter pane before any results displayed. Now, auditing events from the last 24 hours now loaded by default.

Scalar tile text alignment

An Alignment option has been added to the Scalar tile settings, allowing you to select whether you want the scalar text to be left-aligned, centered or right-aligned.

Number formatting options

Previously, only the "Si units" number format was supported. Now, decimal number format support has been added for small units and separator format support has been added for large units.

This enhancement allows you to present metrics very common to infrastructure monitoring in a familiar format. For example, without the separation feature for large numbers a disk space value of 74200mb was displayed as 7.42k - which made little sense to an infrastructure engineer.

Many more enhancements

  • VADA: performance improvements in Analyze mode
  • Initial page size / speed load improvements

See Release Notes for SquaredUp DS for SCOM

What's New in v6.0

SquaredUp DS for SCOM v6.0 includes the following new features:

  • Auditing user actions
  • SolarWinds Orion integration
  • Prometheus integration
  • Many more enhancements

Auditing user actions

Up until now, there have been no auditing capabilities within SquaredUp DS itself meaning it isn’t possible to see how users are interacting with SquaredUp DS. From this release a SquaredUp DS administrator will be able to setup a SQL Server (2016 or higher) database to audit events relating to:

  • License
  • Provider
  • Connections
  • PowerShell Profile
  • PowerShell RunAs
  • Authentication
  • Named user
  • Dashboard
  • Perspective
  • Folder
  • Team Folder
  • Nav bar changes
  • Enterprise Application
  • Recycle bin
  • Audit itself

These new capabilities allow for a greater level of security, help companies meet compliance goals and allow a SquaredUp DS administrator to better understand which dashboards are stale and no longer in use. See our Auditing documentation for full details of what is possible.

SolarWinds Orion Integration

SolarWinds is one of the most widely used monitoring tools alongside SCOM, our customers have wanted to visualize data from it for some time along side their data from SCOM. We have built a native integration that utilizes SolarWinds Query Language (SWQL) to query the data to be displayed using any of these visualizations:

  • Scalar
  • Grid
  • Line graph
  • Column graph
  • Sparklines
  • Bar graph
  • Donut
  • Status icons
  • Status block
  • Date heatmap

See How to use the SolarWinds tile

Prometheus Integration

Prometheus is a timeseries observability tool and is commonly used to monitor Prometheus. Our native integration takes your PromQL query to present the data returned using any of these visualizations:

  • Scalar
  • Grid
  • Line graph
  • Column graph
  • Sparklines
  • Bar graph
  • Donut
  • Date heatmap

See How to use the Prometheus tile

Many more enhancements

  • Date Heatmap: add aggregation options for Web API, SQL, SolarWinds and PowerShell tiles
  • SquaredUp Cloud aligned color pallet and styling
  • New Column Graph visualization: Time series data as bar graphs

See Release Notes for SquaredUp DS for SCOM

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