Searching and viewing CIs and relationships in the CMDB Explorer

You may want to view the CIs in their environment and their relationships in many scenarios. Some of the scenarios include troubleshooting, planning, analyzing dependencies, and so on. The CMDB Explorer facilitates all these while providing various options to modify your view of the environment. You can select CIs from the search results, or anywhere CI information is available, to open them in the CMDB Explorer. The video in this topic gives you an overview of how you can use CMDB Explorer to visualize your data.

Before you begin

• You must be logged in to the CMDB user interface as described in Accessing and navigating the CMDB Portal. 
• You must also have a good working knowledge of datasets and CI names to be able to search them. 
• An administrator must perform the steps described in Configure the server to allow the editing of a CI. 
  
  

To search and view a CI in CMDB Explorer

Sometimes, you may want to view just one particular CI of interest. In that case, search and view the CI as follows:

1. On the CMDB Dashboard, use Quick Search to search for the CI that you want to view in Explorer. 
2. On the search results page, select the check box next to the CI of interest and click Show in Explorer.
   
   
   The CI opens in the Explorer but is not expanded.
   
   (optional) If you right-click the CI and expand it, only the first level of relationships are displayed for that CI.

To search and view a CI and its relationships in CMDB Explorer

If you want to view a CI of interest along with other CIs and relationships in a service model, search and view the CI as follows:

1. On the CMDB Dashboard, use Quick Search to search for the CI that you want to view in Explorer. 
2. On the search results page, click the CI of interest.
   
   
   The CI opens in the Explorer and its relationship with other CIs is displayed. 
   The following figure shows two levels of relationships.
   
   
   

The following video gives you a quick overview on how you can view CIs and relationships using the CMDB Explorer:

 https://youtu.be/2lmCa4xi3jA

You can watch specific parts of the video by clicking these links:
0:04 Introduction 
0:17 Performing the search for the CI 
0:41 View the CI in Explorer 
0:56 Grouping of CIs 
1:04 Using Select mode to group CIs 
1:14 Expanding hierarchy of a CI 
1:17 Changing display layout 
1:26 Filters to selectively display relationships or classes 
1:54 Export a snapshot of the view 
1:59 Tabs to display different datasets

To view both the parents and children of a CI, right-click a CI and select Expand Both. In large environments, clicking Expand Both may open a very huge number of CIs and the performance may depend on how your browser capabilities.

To simplify the view with groups

To simplify your view, the CMDB Explorer automatically groups some CIs into default groups. A default group is created when there are at least four CIs of the same class immediately under a common parent CI.

To expand a default group, click the plus sign next to the group or right-click the group and select Show Item.

To collapse a default group, right-click the parent CI and select Group Children.

To simplify your view with groups

To simplify your view, group the CIs into custom groups by performing the following steps:

1. Click Drag Mode  to switch to Select Mode.
2. Use Select Mode to select CIs that you want to include in the custom group. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. In the select mode, hold the left mouse button and drag the mouse pointer to encircle multiple CIs that you want to group.

When selecting multiple CIs for a custom group, be aware of the following points:

• • You can select CIs that belong to different parent CIs in the hierarchy.

• • You cannot select default groups. The default groups remain unselected.

To simplify your view with filters

To simplify your view, you can use filters to hide various CIs and relationships by performing the following steps: 

1. Click Filter.
   
   
   
   
2. From the list of CIs and relationships currently displayed in the explorer, select or clear check boxes.
   
3.  To create filters that include relationships and classes that are not available, click the  button and select from the list.
   
4. (Optional) Save the custom filter for later use.

To open CIs from the CMDB Explorer in BMC Discovery, product catalog, or service context

To view additional information of a CI that originated from Discovery, you can open a CI from the CMDB Explorer and view its properties in BMC Discovery. You can also open the CI information in a product catalog AR form, or in a service context dialog. 

1. Search for the CI and open it in the CMDB Explorer.
2. Right-click the CI and select one of the following options:
   • BMC Discovery
   • Product catalog
   • Atrium explorer (old UI)
   • Service context
   The CI details open in the appropriate interface.

Related topics

Adding a relationship between CIs

Working with CIs and relationships

Creating a CI for a new service model

Creating a CI for an existing service model