New “Resources Status” page

  • 23 November 2022
  • 7 replies
  • 280 views

Hi,

I’d like to share the feeling I have about the new “Resource Status” page with the community.

In my opinion, the old pages should have never been considered deprecated and not used by default. This is rather this new page that should have been considered a feature preview and made optional.

These are some of the reasons I see:

1) The new page needs a screen with a big definition or else the detailed status (ie: the output of the plugin) is not even visible without removing some columns or zooming out. To put it another way: the layout is far less compact.

2) It’s impossible to filter on the plugin output (ie: the “Information” column in the new page). This is handy when you have a specific issue on some checks, and in some other cases.

3) The popup on mouseover just doesn’t exist. This is handy to quickly see host or service information, without the need to load a new page.

I’ve been told that the deprecated pages were still maintained for bugfix while there is still missing features in the new one, but I regularly have new bugs on those pages, with each new minor release. It’s like there were not tested anymore. Last example: the page numbers are missing in 22.10.1, while this is not the case in 22.04.7.

As a long-time user (and client) of Centreon, I get the feeling that more effort are done toward new users, and potential new clients, than toward current ones.

So I’m making this post to know what the other users think about this new “Resources Status” page. Which have some good points too, let’s be honest.

Have a nice day.


7 replies

Userlevel 4
Badge +10

Hello Stéphane,

 

First I would like to thank you for your feedback. Those are very important for us to progress in the good direction.

I, product manager of the data visualization area in Centreon, will definitely take it in consideration. We are actually in the process of identifying those very last features important for our users and missing in resources status. Allow me to contact you via private message if we need more information.

Generally speaking, do not hesitate to use the “ideas” section of the watch, we are looking to it closely.

To reassure you, the old pages are still supported. This means that even if we will not add new features to it, we are correcting bugs on those.

The bug you are talknig about has been identified and will be fixed soon.

Best,

Nils

Userlevel 1
Badge +3

Hello,

I share Stéphane’s feelings about this and would like to add the following suggestion.

 

On the resources status page, there is a fancy search bar that allow to build a search query.

But I find it not effective at all to have to build a query.

 

Would it be possible to add the search top bar of old page to the new one ?

It is million*million*million times more user friendly than a single search thing where you have to build a query

 

This bar :

 

 

Userlevel 4
Badge +10

Hello @tntteam ,

Thanks a lot for your feedback.

Could you please be more specific about what you find unefficient with the search bar and what was trillion (I guess) times easier with the previous pages? 

Best,

Nils

Userlevel 1
Badge +3

what was trillion (I guess) times easier with the previous pages? 

 

😁

Hello

Compare the speed to search a partial name in hostname, partial name in service name, and select warning level.

In one situation you have to build a query :

Isearch for hostname? Damn, not an available field. I have to know what field name to use.

Ok let’s use “name:partial-name”

Ok it works, but only returns the hosts status.

I want the services of theses hosts.

So I have to discover that I need to search using the field “parent_name:” and not “name:”

Ok I have services now, I want warning level

I type status:warning, press enter, it adds another status level using autocompletion !! 

So I understand I have to enter “status:warning” then press ESC then press ENTER

And something non natural happens, it rewrite my query into the argument order centreon prefer.

 

In the other situation you have to type text in boxes that clearly tells you what to type and where.

 

 

The main issue is the user experience here :

1 ) not all users are centreon ready, I do manage my centreon, but  many sysadmins and even non sysadmins that use my centreon would not understand at all how to build a query. It’s not THAT complicated, but it needs to be explained whereas old interface this never had been a matter of discussion.

2 ) the main issue is the non natural way on using this interface. It’s not fluid / easy. It should be a “no questions asked” kind of interface.

 

Also I don’t like the presentation, “parent_name” ? I have been using hostname since decades.

Hostname on the first column, service name on second column.

It’s clean, clear, talks to everyone.

Why “parent_name” and change an order everyone did understand easy ?

 

 

The only thing I like about the “resources status” page is the menu that pops when you click on a service (the one on the right with tabs and shortcuts). This thing is well done and handy.

I guess a new approach could be to use the new “save filter” functionality.

This new functionality is nice. But sometimes (should I say often ?), one needs to search for something he never searched before. Could be, because it’s a new host/service he just created, or because it’s a silly service that fails one in three yearn, so he hasen’t figure a filter for it yet.
Plus, having many filters will just become hard to manage/use.

Why not have direct input fields in addition to the query field?

Userlevel 4
Badge +10

Hello,

 

That is very valuable feedback, thank you guys. And you’re right, the search of Resources Status is very powerful but the associated user experience should be improved, especially for users not so much familiar with Centreon.

I’ll forward your requests to our UX team, and we will review and priorize them for future releases. 

Please note also that we have a dedicated section “ideas” where other users can vote and this help us to priorize topics that really matters for our users.

Thanks again,

Nils

Userlevel 1
Badge +7

I share the opinion, the new resource pages have some good side but above all it is a big problem of complexity for normal users.

Especially with the single search field which is too complex.

I opened a suggestion topic :

best regards

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