Client Management Suite

I'm wondering whether something could be implemented to make it more obvious as to how to drill down into failed jobs for troubleshooting.

For example, when a job fails I can see this clearly in the console as below,

Very clear. The interface here really leads you to click on the link 'Job -Script XP Sp3 x86', as there are no other highlights or mouse-over changes on these description lines. Clicking the link then does the following,

1. Brings up the job details window, where you can see the task status section showing your computer where the job failed
2. You then click on the failed computer, to bring up a window which really shows you the same information as you saw in the previous window.
3. You then click on the failed computer in this window, to be finally presented the task breakdown and where the job failed.
4. You then click on the failed link to see the details on why it failed

This is a lot of steps.

However, if you just double-click on the computer entry in the screenshot above, you can go directly to step 3. This is great, but it's just not the intuitive action at this point.

What would help here is to make the failed status entry in the screenshot above a hyperlink too. This would make it clear to the user at this stage that they can drill-down here to,

1. The job itself
2. Or why the job failed

Would it also make sense to provide any details available in step (4) with the information already present at the step (3) stage?

Hi Ian!

We have received your feedback and will evaluate this usability issue and decide how to address it.

As always, thanks!

Andrew

OK, here is a change we have implemented.  On the computers view, we now show the status detail, which you give you additional information as to why the task failed at the top level.  How does this look to you?

Argh, the image got cut off.  Anyway, the Status Detail is: "The task timed out on the Task Server while waiting for the agent to pick it up."

The point is, that we bubble up the actual message instead of making you go find it.

Brilliant Andrew -that was FAST!

That works great in the scenario where it's just a task that's failed. In the scenario where a task in a job has failed, would it be possible to also reveal the task?

So, for example "The task 'Run Script' timed out"

And, it would still be nice to get the failed status hyperlinked so you can immediately bring up the job/task progress view...  ;-) 

Yes, we thought of that as well!  When a job is being run, the real-time progress is displayed:

If you drill-down on the job, you see this:

If there is a failure, then that information is displayed at the top-level and then you can drill down and see which task within the job failed and why.

Hi Andrew,

Is that now a single drill down to get that task instance view?

Yes.  From the first screen I posted above, you see the high level job status.  All you do is double-click on that job and it brings up that progress view.  If you click on the hyperlink provided under Description, then it re-directs you to the Jobs/Tasks view and shows you the full job (where you can reschedule, modify, etc.).

One thing I am requesting that we add is a refresh button to that first screen capture you see above. It does show the real-time status but there is no easy way to refresh that.

Excellent. And that refresh (which hadn't occurred to me) will be a nice addition too.

Kind regards,
Ian./

I resized your image... hope it helps

Cheryl

Thanks Chery!