Understanding UI components
Menu bar
The menu bar has menus and sub-menus that cover the key functional areas of BMC Discovery.
The following table describes what you can do in each of the functional areas:
Functional area | Description |
|
|---|---|---|
Home Icon | Links to the BMC Discovery Home page. | |
Explore | ||
| Data | Provides an overview of the discovered and modeled hardware and software infrastructure. Each icon links to views or list views of the content. |
| Reports | Provides grouped links to many reports on all aspects of the discovered and modeled hardware and software infrastructure. |
| Query | Provides tabs where you can enter generic queries, advanced search, and saved user queries. |
| PDF Reports | Provides links to generated PDF reports, such as host profile reports. |
Model | ||
| Devices | Lists unrecognized devices and enables you to create SNMP recognition rules, and trigger scans of the devices. |
| Applications | Provides a status page where you can view application modeling activities, including Start Anywhere Application Modeling and legacy CAM models. This is not a "start point" for application modeling, for Start Anywhere Application Modeling, you can start at any entry point, host, Software Instance or Component, Load Balancer; anywhere. |
| Software | Provides a status page where you can view software modeling activities. It provides start points for Creating SIs from discovered processes and services. |
Manage | ||
| Discovery | Provides tools for you to manage and monitor discovery. You can add snapshot runs and manage scheduled runs and exclude ranges. You can also monitor the current status of discovery. Use this to diagnose where credential failures are occurring and to see transient failures and where nodes are aging. |
| Credentials | Enables you to manage the credentials you use to access host systems and other network and management devices. |
Data Sources | Enables you to manage the data sources you use to access information held in centralized data stores such as centralized asset databases, a file system on a host, or a store accessed using a REST API. | |
| Knowledge | Enables you to manage the pattern modules installed on the appliance, including pattern configurations. You can also install new Technology Knowledge Updates (TKUs), Extended Data Packs (EDPs), TKUs for Storage (where licensed) and custom patterns. |
| Model Rules | Enables you to manage the rule definitions for visualizations and application modeling. |
| Discovery Tools | Provides links to download Windows Proxies, Standalone Windows Scanners (enabling you to scan Windows hosts without network access), and a tool for exporting root node key information. |
Outposts & Proxies | Provides links to manage Outposts and Windows Proxies. | |
Administration Icon | Links to the BMC Discovery Administration page. | |
Search box
The search box is displayed at the top right of each page, simply enter text and press Return. Search results are shown in a new page.
Click the Search Options icon (magnifying glass) to display the Search dialog box, where you can tailor your searches as shown in the following illustration.
The search options enable you to search the database for a keyword. To close this panel, click the Search Options icon again or click the 'X' icon at the top-left corner of the panel.
For more information about the search options available, see Searching-for-data.
User information
Click the user name displayed above the search box to display the user information panel. This contains links to:
- User Details
- Application Preferences
- Change Password
See Setting-preferences for more information.
The User information panel also contains links to your recently viewed items. The recent items menu lists the 10 most recently accessed pages, enabling you to navigate back to them easily. This list is retained between sessions.
Click Clear to clear the list. When items are deleted from the system, they are not removed from the recent items list.
Dynamic toolbox
A dynamically populated toolbox is located on the Menu bar of the UI. When you scroll down, the toolbox remains visible. On the Home page, the dynamic toolbox contains the following icons:
Title | Icon | Description |
|---|---|---|
Notifications |
| Displays a panel that shows important notifications. |
Available Dashboards |
| Displays a panel that shows available dashboards. The Available Dashboards icon is only displayed on the Home page. For more information, see Dashboards. |
Manual Groups |
| Displays a panel showing the current list of manual groups. For more information, see Manual-grouping. |
Appliance Status |
| Displays a panel with the appliance name, time read from the appliance's internal clock, and the number of ECA engines running. The panel also provides a link titled Major Problems Detected. Click this link to go to the Administration > Appliance Baseline page, view the detailed appliance status, and take action on each item. For more information, see Baseline-configuration. |
Favorite Queries |
| Displays a panel showing the current list of favorite queries. For more information, see Saving-and-sharing-queries. |
Help |
| Displays help about:
Click the Help icon to display the dialog box. |
Dynamic icons
The Dynamic toolbox also contains icons that are displayed on other nodes, such as when you are viewing the details of a host. The following icons are provided:
- Attachments — Lists the attachments for this node and enables you to manage them. For details, see Managing-attachments. Click the Attachments icon to display the dialog box.
- Additional Links — Lists any external links associated with this node. For example, the drop-down dialog below provides links to search engines that might provide further useful information about this node.
Click the Attachments icon to show the drop-down dialog. For more information, see Configuring-additional-links.
- Discovery Session Logs — Displays a list of discovery session logs. This list is available for host nodes only.
- Click the Discovery Session Logs icon to display the dialog box.
Select a session log from the list and click the link.
For more information about discovery session logs, see if you encounter a problem.
Actions reports and visualizations
The following menus are provided on node pages or node lists: Actions, Reports, and Visualizations. On node pages only, a Related menu is also available.
Actions
The Actions menu is dynamic and changes depending on the page on which it is displayed. On a Host List page, this menu contains the following options:
- Only show selected—Filters the list to show only nodes that are selected.
- Export as CSV—Exports the selected nodes as CSV files.
- Scan...—Performs a snapshot scan of the selected nodes.
- Create Host Profiles—Creates host profiles of the selected nodes.
- Sync to CMDB—Syncs the selected nodes to the CMDB.
- CMDB Sync Preview—Shows a software context preview of the selected nodes and connected nodes as synced to the CMDB.
- Manual Groups—Opens the manual grouping menu.
- Destroy—Destroys the selected nodes.
Reports
The Reports menu is dynamic and changes depending on the page on which it is displayed. This menu contains a list of reports that can be run for all items in a list (which might be on multiple pages), or the selected items.
- To run a report for all items on a list page, ensure that no items are selected by clicking None on the left side of the page. Then, from the Reports menu, select the report that you want to run.
- To run a report for the selected items on a list page, select the report from the Reports menu.
Visualize/Model
The Visualize/Model menu shows the selected items in the Visualization view. It is a good starting point for Start Anywhere Application Modeling.
Related
The Related menu is dynamic and changes depending on the node type of the page on which it is displayed. This menu enables you to navigate the model by traversing from a node to any other related node. The Related menu displays the number of related nodes for each target node. Where different relationships to the same node kind exist, the label is shown to differentiate between them; for example, IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. Click an item to navigate to its page or to a list page where multiple items are linked by the same relationship.
Tips for navigating the UI
- Choose an option from the menu bar to access one of the main sections (Explore, Manage, or Model).
- The top-level page for each section displays a summary of the objects in that section.
- To search the system, use the Search option in the Version Number and Search Bar. For more information, see Search Bar and Searching-for-data.
- Most available reports appear in the Reports section. You can also run some of the most common reports from the BMC Discovery Home page and from the top-level page of the Applications and Infrastructure sections. Also, context-sensitive reports are available for some individual nodes.
- When you run a search or a report, items that meet your criteria are listed in the main display window.
- An item that appear as a highlighted hyperlink on any screen indicates objects in the database that you can view in detail. Click the item to display the relevant detail page. See Viewing-objects.
- You can set up a progress bar that appears during navigation between screens. The progress bar appears only after the number of seconds that you specify. See Setting Your Application Preferences.
Downloading user documentation
From the BMC Discovery product UI, you can access the online product documentation and download the available documentation as a PDF. The online documentation might be more up to date than the PDF version.
- Click the Help icon from the dynamic toolbox.
- Click Documentation.
The full list of available BMC Discovery online user documentation is displayed, along with a link to download the PDF version. - If you are connected to the Internet and want to view the online documentation, select a document from the list and click the link for the online documentation (for example, Getting started).
- If you want to download the available PDF documentation, click the PDF link. A pop-up window enables you to open or save the document.