Dashboard functionality and configuration settings

Customizations
1

(imported topic written by SystemAdmin)

While researching how the dashboard works, I came across this post: http://forum.bigfix.com/viewtopic.php?id=1369. One of the things I noticed is the statement that you need to restart the client. This seems to be a rather clumsy way of getting the dashboard data refreshed, especially if you’d like to put more timely and important data in there. Something as awkward as ( sc stop besclient & besclienthelper.exe & triggerclient.exe ) works, but just doesn’t seem like the right thing to do.

Would it be possible to add some functionality to the dashboard (a configuration setting?) which would allow it to automatically refresh when it was opened (or requested to open via triggerclient.exe/besclientui.exe)?

The reason for doing this would be to set the dashboard file full of relevances to show sections based on registry settings. The dashboard would be full of helpful information for the user, but the only the relevant sections would be displayed (based on the updated relevance checks). The idea would be to either notify the user with a popup sent via Bigfix, but rather than try to explain too much (and potentially lose the information if they closed it), and tell them to view the dashboard details in order to find out how to resolve issues that have been detected. If we could guarantee that the dashboard icon is availble and perhaps trigger a tooltip type balloon, this would be much better*.

Secondly, can you explain what the two configuration settings _BESCLIENT_ActionManager_BalloonMode and _BESCLIENT_ActionManager_TrayMode do? My guess is to allow a balloon tooltip over the tray icon (when there are offers? actions pending?) and the other to enable the tray icon? The web page listing the configuration settings doesn’t include these two (and probably a few others).

Thanks.

-Jim

  • Personally I can’t stand popup dialog boxes - especially when I’m typing and as I hit spacebar it often activates the OK button and closes the dialog without me even being able to read it.
2

(imported comment written by jessewk)

You can put a refresh link in the dashboard to refresh the data. Or you can use javascript or other techniques to periodically reload the data. The only time you need to restart the client is when you modify the underlying resource pages stored in the UISupport folder.

You can guarantee the presence of the dashboard icon by setting the appropriate client settings (the Tray mode): http://support.bigfix.com/cgi-bin/kbdirect.pl?id=441

For descriptions of Tray and Balloon settings, see Tasks 485 and 486 in the BES Support site.

Does that help?

3

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

Thanks for the information. I will see if the half-ballon notification is useable. I don’t yet know how to go about sending a message which would be classified as a notification message, but I’ll have a look around.

( Btw, I’m glad the information is available, but perhaps the configuration settings page could be updated with the pieces from the kb page and the tasks?)

Secondly, I had forgotten to mention that the behaviour of the dashboard isn’t what I would expect (including the manual need to refresh the page). By this, I mean that if you minimise the dashboard and then either click on the icon in the taskbar, the dashboard opens but scrolls the page back to the top (annoying, as our technical page is somewhat lengthy). If you close the window and use ‘triggerclient.exe’ to bring it back up, the the window will reopen at the same spot on the page when it was closed. Odd.

The bigger issue is in the use of the technical page. In my mind the dashboard is for the user of the machine, whereas the technical one would be for a support person visiting (or RDPing/visiting) the desktop. When shift+ctr+alt+t is activated, the Technical page comes up, but this also means that

a) it becomes the default (open) page when you close and reopen the dashboard

b) the tab is always active in the dashboard until someone presses shift+ctrl+alt+t again.

This could be quite confusing for a user, when after a technician stops RDPing or walked away, a user will be faced with a non-standard situation.

http:// Yes, we know that technically, they should be able to cope, but in the real, business-world environment, we have to try provide a silver-spoon feeding service.

Could (should?) the dashboard tool be modified to remove the technical tab from the dashboard once it’s closed (toggle setting for it to false?) and to set the dashboard page to the default. If there are any users that want/need the current setting (which is to remain on the page that was last active when it was closed), perhaps that could be an additional configuration setting option.

I would think that when the dashboard is closed and reopened, it wouldn’t be too strange for anyone if it opened using the main, dashboard page. If they wanted to keep it on a single page, they could just minimise it and bring it up as needed.

Lastly, it may be that the lack of a ‘refresh on open’ was a technical limitation or it just happened to be coded that way, but it seems rather odd to me. I will now need to create a fixlet (or append to an action) that does addtional checks for whether we need to notify the user, add in a check that will read the time of the _currentdashboard.html file, if the interval is >x time, I will then do the “sc stop besclient & besclienthelper.exe & triggerclient.exe” to ensure the data that appears is relevant. Phew. This seems much too awkward. I should only have to send a message “There are one or more security issues with how your machine is configured. Please check the dashboard tool for more information.”, knowing that the dashboard tool is up to date, with all the smart relevance in _dashboard.html having created a nicely formated and informative _currentdashboard.html file.

I don’t want (nor do I think it should be necessary) to have to code in some javascript to continually update the page (which I think could be quite annoying) and I really don’t want to code in a redundant “Please click the refresh link” reminder text as the top of the page. I really just think that the dashboard when opened, reflects the current status, NOT the status from when it was last refreshed. This makes much more sense, unless I am missing all the PRO’s for why it was done the way it is now.

Please don’t think that I am knocking what I think is a very helpful tool. But due to the way it works, I’m just struggling to understand how to safely and easily integrate this tool into a very large user environment

Summary:

  • Investigate inconsistent behavior when opening the dashboard or bringing forward when minimised.

  • Technical page should close/disappear when dashboard is closed, with dashboard page set to default when opened/reopened. (shift+ctrl+alt+t toggle is reset to 0/false?)

  • Dashboard and Technical pages should be refreshed upon opening of dashboard. (Modifications to _dashboard.html will still require restarting client.)

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(imported comment written by BenKus)

Hey jwilkinson,

I think these are good enhancement requests and I will file them.

Ben

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(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

Thanks, Ben. It seems there is no chance that these will be included in the next release, but hopefully they would be under consideration thereafter.

One other point in regards to the balloon notification, can you tell me in what instance this occurs?

From the task ‘BES Client Setting: Client UI Balloon Mode Selection’:

“HalfBalloon” Mode: If “HalfBalloon” mode is enabled, “running” messages will be displayed using the messaging dialog box while “notification” messages will be displayed using the Windows balloon notification mechanism.

I think this is probably the best behavior (which is why it is the default), but not how I can use it. Could someone please explain how the notifcation piece works - what can trigger it, can I active it via command line/locally or does it have to be part of a fixlet/baseline?

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(imported comment written by BenKus)

I think these notifications are pre-defined and not customizable… Like “Action completed”…

The user message customizability is supposed to be built from the “Message” tab in the Take Action Dialog, but it doesn’t give you many advanced options for those message formats…

Ben