System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager: Implement the new Widgets

With the new Update Rollup, System Center Operations Manager has received new widgets to enhance the Dashboard View. The idea is give more “power” to SCOM without use third-part plug-in. As I said in my last article, these are the list of new widgets:

  • Contextual Alert Widget
  • Contextual Health Widget
  • Image Widget
  • Object Detail Tiles Widget
  • Object Health Widget
  • Powershell Grid Widget
  • Powershell Web Browser Widget
  • SLA Tiles Widget
  • State Tiles Widget
  • Topology widget
  • Web Browser Widget

So, let’s see how to create some of these new objects. The first widget that I want show is PowerShell Web Browser integrated with Alerts View.

First of all, create a new Dashboard with a Grid with two rows, after that add the new widget, as showed in figure 1. The first rows must be Alerts View and the second one PowerShell Web Browser.


Figure 1 – New Widgets

During the wizard of the second widget you must insert a part of code. This is an example from TechNet Wiki:

Param($globalSelectedItems)

$dataObject = $ScriptContext.CreateInstance("xsd://Microsoft.SystemCenter.Visualization.Component.Library!Microsoft.SystemCenter.Visualization.Component.Library.WebBrowser.Schema/Request")  

$dataObject["BaseUrl"]="http://www.bing.com/search"

$parameterCollection = $ScriptContext.CreateCollection("xsd://Microsoft.SystemCenter.Visualization.Component.Library!Microsoft.SystemCenter.Visualization.Component.Library.WebBrowser.Schema/UrlParameter[]") 

foreach ($globalSelectedItem in $globalSelectedItems) 
{ 
    $parameter = $ScriptContext.CreateInstance("xsd://Microsoft.SystemCenter.Visualization.Component.Library!Microsoft.SystemCenter.Visualization.Component.Library.WebBrowser.Schema/UrlParameter")  

    $parameter["Name"] = "q"

    $alert = Get-SCOMAlert -Id $globalSelectedItem["Id"] 
    $parameter["Value"] = "opsmgr alert `"" + $alert.Name + "`""
    $parameterCollection.Add($parameter) 
} 

$dataObject["Parameters"]= $parameterCollection 
$ScriptContext.ReturnCollection.Add($dataObject)

At the end of the wizard, you should see a result like figure 2.


Figure 2 – Alerts with PowerShell Web Browser Widget

What is the real advantage of this configuration? Every time you click on a specific alert, the Name column will be passed to Web Search in order to search it into the web. Cool, right?

The second widget that I want show you is the Topology. What???? A map view? Yes! Before this update, the only way to have a topology view in SCOM was use Savision Live Maps but now it’s possible do the same directly in Operations Manager.

Remember that Live Maps gives more functionality than Topology Widget but if you need only a view where collocate your server, this is the right tool for you!

Setup is always the same but during the wizard you must select what kind of object include into the view and the image to use: by default there are only world view but it’s possible upload custom image. Object can be dragged into the map and the result is very similar like Live Maps, as showed in figure 3.


Figure 3 – Topology Widget

Absolutely awesome these new widgets! If you want more information about them read the full article on TechNet Wiki: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/24133.operations-manager-dashboard-widgets.aspx

Try System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager: http://technet.microsoft.com/it-it/evalcenter

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