Pinned Perspectives
What is a pinned perspective?
A 'pinned perspective' is a perspective that has been added to the navigation bar (available in v4.5 and above).
Pinning a perspective to the navigation bar creates a handy shortcut to a perspective for a specific object. Usually, you first need to navigate to the specific object to be able to choose which perspective you want to see. By pinning the perspective to the navigation bar, you can go to one specific perspective directly.
Note: A pinned perspective is one perspective for one specific object. Even though a perspective can be available for different objects of the same type, pinning a perspective does not mean you pin the perspective to the navigation bar and then choose the object you want to see. The pinned perspective will be about the one object you were viewing when you pinned the perspective.
Use cases for pinned perspectives
In addition to creating a shortcut on the navigation bar, pinned perspectives offer you two further options:
- You can add the pinned perspective to a Team Folder to control who can view the pinned perspective.
Note: Only SquaredUp DS Admins can create and edit perspectives. This applies also to pinned perspectives in Team Folders. While a normal dashboard in a Team Folder can be edited by users when they have the author or owner role for the Team Folder, a pinned perspective in a Team Folder can't be edited by users, even if they have the author or owner role, since editing a perspective affects all objects of the same type.
For more information about Team Folders and roles see Team Folders.Note: Only SquaredUp DS Admins can create pinned perspectives.
- Go to the object you want to pin a perspective for.
- Choose the perspective you want to pin for this object from the perspective ribbon.
- Click on the Share this dashboard button at the top right of the page. This button is only visible when you are not in edit mode.
- Under Pin this perspective as a dashboard, click on the select location button.
- You'll see your navigation bar displayed as a tree structure. At the bottom of the tree you'll see the perspective as a new item highlighted in red. Drag the perspective into the navigation bar structure as you require.
Note for Team Folders: If you want to add the perspective to a Team Folder you need to select the Team Folder from the drop down list at the top of the tree structure first.
Name of the pinned perspective: By default, the name of the pinned perspective is the name of the object followed by the name of the perspective. You can edit the name by clicking on it. - Click the pin perspective button at the bottom of the navigation structure.
Who can move dashboards and pinned perspectives?
From the navigation bar into a Team Folder: Only SquaredUp DS Admins, as only Admins have permissions to edit a globally viewable dashboard.
From a Team Folder to the navigation bar: Only SquaredUp DS Admins, as only Admins have permissions to add a globally viewable dashboard.
From one Team Folder into another Team Folder: You need to have an owner or author role for both Team Folders (SquaredUp DS Admins automatically have the owner role for both).
How to move a dashboard or pinned perspective
- Go to the dashboard or pinned perspective you want to move.
Note: You need to go to the individual dashboard or pinned perspective because they can only be moved from there. You can't move dashboards in and out of Team Folders via the Team Folder settings or the edit navigation settings, but you can go to the dashboard or pinned perspective you want to move from there by clicking on the view dashboard button. - Click the edit this dashboard button:
- Click the move button:
- You'll see the navigation bar as a tree structure. The team folder dropdown list at the top shows all the Team Folders you have the author or owner role for. SquaredUp DS Administrators will see the everyone option in addition to all Team Folders in this dropdown list as only they can add or remove dashboards to or from the navigation bar.
- Select the Team Folder you want to move the dashboard in to.
- If there are other dashboards in the Team Folder, drag your dashboard into position in the navigation structure.
- Click the move button to complete the move.
- You can publish the pinned perspective via Open Access to make it visible for others who can't login to SquaredUp DS (for more information about publishing with Open Access see Sharing Dashboards with anyone - Open Access)
- Go to the dashboard or pinned perspective you want to create an Open Access URL for.
Note: If you want to create an Open Access URL for a pinned perspective, you need to be on the pinned perspective, not a general perspective that is not pinned. You can make sure you are on the pinned perspective by clicking on the name of the pinned perspective on the navigation bar. If you are on a perspective that is not pinned, you'll see a message that this perspective needs to be pinned first. - Make sure the dashboard or pinned perspective is already published. If it is still a draft, publish it first.
- Click on the share this dashboard button. If you can't see the button, check if you are still in edit mode since this button is only visible when you are not in edit mode.
- You'll see the following sharing options:
Sharing options
- In the Open Access section toggle the enable open access button to on.
- You will see the message 'Preparing your Open Access dashboard, please wait' and a thumbnail of the dashboard itself:
- Click preview to view the dashboard in Open Access mode. The dashboard is given an Open Access URL and enabled for Open Access. You can now give the URL to anyone you want to be able to access the dashboard.
After a dashboard is updated the changes are shown on the Open Access dashboard when it next refreshes, usually in 60 seconds. On SquaredUp DS v4 this may take up to 20 minutes.
- Go to the dashboard or pinned perspective you want to create an Open Access URL for.
Navigating from a pinned perspective to the object
A pinned perspective shows a go to drilldown button which takes you to the object. From there, you can see the perspective ribbon again and choose between all available perspectives for that object.
Editing a pinned perspective
When you are viewing a pinned perspective and click on the edit this dashboard button you'll get a message that this dashboard is a pinned perspective and can't be edited here.
When you click on edit perspective you'll get to the object that contains the perspective. Here you can navigate to the perspective and edit it like a normal perspective.
Note: Only SquaredUp DS Admins can create and edit perspectives. This applies also to pinned perspectives in Team Folders. While a normal dashboard in a Team Folder can be edited by users when they have the author or owner role for the Team Folder, a pinned perspective in a Team Folder can't be edited by users, even if they have the author or owner role, since editing a perspective affects all objects of the same type.
Note: The changes you make to the perspective will apply to all objects for which the perspective is available, not just for the one object that is shown in the pinned perspective.
How to create a pinned perspective
Note: Only SquaredUp DS Admins can create pinned perspectives.
- Go to the object you want to pin a perspective for.
- Choose the perspective you want to pin for this object from the perspective ribbon.
- Click on the Share this dashboard button at the top right of the page. This button is only visible when you are not in edit mode.
- Under Pin this perspective as a dashboard, click on the select location button.
- You'll see your navigation bar displayed as a tree structure. At the bottom of the tree you'll see the perspective as a new item highlighted in red. Drag the perspective into the navigation bar structure as you require.
Note for Team Folders: If you want to add the perspective to a Team Folder you need to select the Team Folder from the drop down list at the top of the tree structure first.
Name of the pinned perspective: By default, the name of the pinned perspective is the name of the object followed by the name of the perspective. You can edit the name by clicking on it. - Click the pin perspective button at the bottom of the navigation structure.
How to delete a pinned perspective
SquaredUp DS admins can view a list of all the published perspectives from System > Perspectives.
The Delete button allows you to delete a perspective quickly.
You can navigate to a dashboard, perspective, or pinned perspective, click the edit button and then click the delete button.
Note: If you are deleting a pinned perspective, you only delete the pinned perspective, not the original perspective.
Note about the discard button:
If a dashboard or perspective is not published yet (draft), the discard and discard changes buttons will delete it.
If the dashboard or perspective has been published, and then you make changes, discard will discard the changes and leave the previously published dashboard or perspective live.
If you unpublish a dashboard or perspective and then discard changes then the dashboard or perspective will be deleted.
More options to delete a dashboard or pinned perspective
Note: These options only work for dashboards and pinned perspectives, not for perspectives. If you delete a pinned perspective, only the pinned perspective will be deleted, not the original perspective.
Other options to delete a dashboard or pinned perspective are:
- You can delete the dashboard or pinned perspective from the navigation bar. Deleting it from the navigation bar will delete it completely, not just from the navigation bar.
The global navigation editor is accessible only by SCOM administrators (Types of users in SquaredUp DS) from the right-hand menu ☰ > edit navigation or system > dashboards.
This allows SCOM administrators to reposition globally viewable folders and Team Folders on the navigation bar, as well as the ability to move any globally viewable dashboards.
Globally viewable (normal) dashboards are shown simply by the dashboard name.
Globally viewable folders (normal folders that appear on the navigation bars for everyone) are shown by a folder icon:
Team folders are shown with this icon:
Managing the dashboards within Team Folders is done from the Team Folder settings page.
Click on the dashboard 'handle' to drag it to a new position, for example, drag it to the right to move it into a subfolder.
Reordering content is saved automatically and any changes are instantly reflected.
There are 3 icons across different elements of the navigation editor when hovering on a folder:
- If the dashboard or pinned perspective is in a folder, you can go to the folder settings , click the edit button, and delete it from the folder. Deleting it from the folder will delete the dashboard, not just from the folder. Admin users can restore dashboards and perspectives, see Recycle Bin