Overview of product workspaces

A workspace is the working area of the Tivoli Enterprise Portal application window. At the left of the workspace is a Navigator that permits you to select the workspace you want to display. As part of the application window, the right side of the status bar shows the Tivoli Enterprise Portal server name to which the displayed information applies, as well as the ID of the current user. Some key points about workspaces are as follows:

• As you select items in the Navigator, the workspace presents views pertinent to your selection. Each workspace has at least one view.
• Every workspace has a set of properties associated with it. You can customize the workspace by working in the Properties editor to change the style and content of each view.
• Another way to customize the workspace is to change the type of view or to add views to the workspace.
• Always save your changes before moving to a new workspace. Otherwise, the changes you make to the workspace are lost.
• Some workspaces, such as those dedicated to tracking the metrics of a DS8000® storage device, are not available in selection menus and lists when DS8000 storage devices do not exist in the monitoring environment.

Information can be presented to you in any of the following views:

• Table view
• Pie chart view
• Bar chart view
• Plot chart view
• Needle gauge view
• Thermometer gauge view
• Notepad view
• Situation Event console view, which shows the status of the situations associated with the system.
• Take Action view, which is used to send a command to the system.
• Terminal view, which enables you to start a 3270 or 5250 work session.
• Browser view, which permits you to open a browser to see HTML pages and Web sites.

Use the Export function of the Tivoli Enterprise Portal to store product data as text or as comma separated values (CSV format). For example, you can right-click on a table view and select Export to export the data in the view.

There is a direct relationship between attributes and workspaces. An attribute group typically corresponds to a table view within a named workspace and attribute items correspond to columns in the table view.

Each Tivoli Enterprise Portal workspace displays real-time information or historical data for many of the attributes. The information is available to you, independent of whether you are using OMEGAMON® for Storage on z/OS® to monitor situations.

For descriptions of the individual workspaces, see Workspaces.

You can view information about each managed system that you are monitoring. Use this information to perform the following tasks:

• Monitor the performance of each managed system, helping you to identify bottlenecks and evaluate tuning decisions
• Select the most effective threshold values for situations you create
• Review status information when a change in the state of a given resource occurs, such as from OK to Warning or Critical

Every workspace has a set of properties associated with it. You can customize the workspace by working in the Properties editor to change the style and content of each view. Changes you make to workspace properties, such as adding or editing a view are only temporary. They are lost when you exit Tivoli Enterprise Portal unless you save the workspace.

The properties of a workspace can include some or all of the following:

Query

Specify what data must be specified in the chart or table

Filters

Refine the view by filtering out unwanted data from the chart or table

Thresholds

Establish threshold values and color indicators for a table view

Configuration

Specify the script to run or the connection to make whenever you open the terminal view

Style

Change the behavior and appearance of the view

When the conditions of a situation have been met, the situation evaluates to True, causing a situation event indicator to be displayed in the Navigator. You can investigate the situation event by opening its workspace.

The situation event workspace shows two table views, one with the values of the attributes when the situation evaluated to True, and the other with the attributes' current values.

The situation event workspace can also display a text view with any expert advice written by the author of the situation, and the Take Action view so you can send a command to the application started on that system.

To manually set up filtering for a given table view, place the cursor on the table view, press the right mouse button, and select Properties. (The equivalent keystroke is Ctrl+R.) From the displayed dialog box, select the Filters tab. Here you can select the columns to display as well as set up the criteria for which rows to display. To save your filtering specifications, you must save the workspace before exiting.

Sorting is handled by simply clicking on a column heading. Click once and the report is sorted in ascending order. Click a second time to resort the report into descending order. A third click returns you to the report's default sort order.

When using Tivoli Enterprise Portal in browser mode, you can start it from any workstation by entering the URL of the Tivoli Enterprise Portal server where the browser mode client is installed. Each Tivoli Enterprise Portal workspace also has a URL so that you can save the workspace to your Favorites list or specify it as your home page.