Forum Discussion

gmack's avatar
gmack
8 years ago

Dynamic Settings

Is it possible to make some items like Device Group names change dynamically across the LM system once changed at the Devices tab?

While the use of glob expressions certainly adds intricacy and customization, it is currently quite a headache to have to change every widget, alert rule, et al. that are tied to a group name that has been changed. An example is:

A client of mine adds a word to their name, and we decide to reflect that in our Device group naming.  Upon editing the group name, the 10 alert rules and 20 widgets that specifically reference that group break, and require individual edits after the fact.

A more concerning example would be if one of our engineers makes a mistake and adds an erroneous character to a device name while editing a property.  Until someone catches it, alert rules are then broken.

 

  • Mosh's avatar
    Mosh
    Icon for Professor rankProfessor
    8 years ago

    I would actually like to see Alert Rules use custom properties.  So rule activates if the device has inherited a custom property value from a group.  This way a custom property could be set with a static ID for a customer, like a customer ID, and the customer name can change but the ID would stay the same.

  • mnagel's avatar
    mnagel
    Icon for Professor rankProfessor
    8 years ago

    A larger issue here is that data references are often stored within LM as a name, not the object ID, so changing the name in one place divorces it from the object it was tied to.  That can make sense for patterns, but not in other cases, like usernames (if you ever change a username, all references to the user are broken, including escalation chains).  As far as dashboard tokens -- they are awesome, but not universally supported in all widgets, sadly (for example, Alert widgets do not support them).

    +1 for custom properties in alert rules, as well as instance group references.

    Thanks,
    Mark

     

  • gmack's avatar
    gmack
    8 years ago

    Thanks for the response, Clay.  As far as the Dashboard Tokens are concerned, this is definitely the direction I am going for.  While it will still mean that I have to edit the token values with every group name edit, it will be far fewer in number.

    I am not sure I follow for alert rules however?  I currently have my alert rules set for specific group names, and as soon as a group name changes, that rule no longer applies.