Our first Dashboard Widget for SCOM 2012

code4ward.net released the first SCOM 2012 dashboard widget extension for SCOM 2012:
Web View Widget Management Pack

This weekend I had a little fun with SCOM and the new dashboards. Brian Wren posted a little (actually a huge!) guide on TechNet (including the files) about writing/authoring custom dashboard widgets. It wasn’t that easy because some parts of the guide didn’t quite match with the files and some things didn’t work as expected. Considering the size of the guide and judging from the screenshots, this guide was in the works for several months, maybe more than a year! To sum up, I’ve learned a lot and I will try to update the guide as good as I can and incorporate my experience as well.

Web View Widget

You may wonder why you need such a widget. There are plenty of reasons for that and while Microsoft ships a Web Page View for Operations Manager, they didn’t ship a widget for the Dashboards. A web view widget might be very useful if you want to create a dashboard with SCOM data and data from other systems which provide a web interface – all in one view. Well, with this little enhancement you can do that now.

Features of this Management Pack

• Configure a URL of a web page to load and display in the dashboard widget.
• Personalize the widget to show/hide a navigation toolbar and to enable, disable, configure to auto refresh the page every x seconds.
• The web console does not provide all navigation toolbar features.

Installation

To install the management pack, download the zip file fromhttp://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Web-View-Widget-Management-0d14bd0a and extract the file: code4ward.SystemCenter.WebViewWidgetPack.mpb

In the Operations Console, go to Administration -> Management Packs. Click on “Import Management Packs…”. Add the management pack to the import list:

Click on Import to start the import process.

Using the new Dashboard Widget

First create a new Dashboard View in the Monitoring space or “My Workspace”. Choose any layout for the dashboard and finish the wizard. Once the (empty) dashboard is loaded, click on “Click to add widget…”:

Click on code4ward.net in the Template page and select “Web View Widget”:

Click on next and provide a name and optional description for the widget you want to add. Click on next:

Enter the URL to the web page you want to load and display within the widget. Click on next and finish the wizard.
Once the dashboard is created and the widget(s) is configured you can personalize some settings:

Note the gear icon which appears when you hover the mouse over the widget. Click on it to change the configuration or personalize the widget:

That’s it. Not much but I think still useful.

Disclaimer:
The information and management pack is provided “AS IS” with no warranties. Use at your own risk!