More bugs, missing features and enhancements for 2.1

joejf

I am having trouble switching away from SQL Response to the new SQL Monitor. It seems like it is not yet a full replacement. The following bugs, missing features and enhancements would go a long way to make SQL Monitor a full replacement for and upgrade to SQL Response.

Bugs:

• Alert Inbox: changing the Rows to display resets Advanced filter options
• Alert Inbox: The Type and Comment columns use too much of the available horizontal space. The Object column for Agent Job alerts typically only shows "machine\instance > Jobs > " and does not have room to show the job name. It looks like the Type, Object and Comment columns are configured to use equal amounts of space. The columns should not be configured to use more space than required so the longer fields can display when there is room.

Missing (SQL Response included these features):

• Job failed alert email: Does not include the Job name.
• Job failed: Does not include the Job Step details. The Job outcome is usually not helpful.
• Add a comment (for an alert): when adding a comment for 1 or more alerts in the Add a comment popup there should be a check box to also clear the alerts.

Enhancement:

• Job failed alert email: Include the Job name and the Job Step details (also missing from the alert inbox).
• Alert Inbox: Cannot open several alerts in tabs. If I control click on the row the new alert opens in a new tab in the foreground. The Open link in the Actions drop down does work but that is very inconvenient. Make the Type and/or Object text fields regular links so they will open in the background (when the user wants them to).
• Alert Inbox: Along withe the previous inconvenience there is no way to navigate between alerts (previous, next). Also, there is no way to get back to the Alerts that you were viewing (with filtering, etc.). You have to reset the Alert Inbox view after viewing every alert.
• Analysis: Allow for comparisons on custom time ranges.

Keep up the good work!

Chris Spencer

Hi

Apologies for the issues that prevent you from moving to the new version.

Addressing the Bugs section for now (I'll investigate the Missing and Enhancement sections soon)

joejf wrote:

Alert Inbox: changing the Rows to display resets Advanced filter options

We have several issues regarding the Advanced filter options being reset when they shouldn't. I've added your case to the relevent bug report (ref: SRP-2113) which is to be looked at and hopefully fixed in v2.2.

joejf wrote:

Alert Inbox: The Type and Comment columns use too much of the available horizontal space

I've created a new bug report (ref: SRP-3091) for this. Ultimately I'd like to see functionality whereby the user can manually configure the column widths and for this to persist between sessions.

Regards
Chris

Chris Spencer

Re: Missing section

joejf wrote:

Job failed alert email: Does not include the Job name.

This has been asked for on these forums previously. An enhancement request (ref: SRP-2472) exists already so I've added a note to this and linked this thread. It's currently set to be investigated/fixed in v2.2 but I can't guarantee that it will definitely get done.

joejf wrote:

Job failed: Does not include the Job Step details. The Job outcome is usually not helpful.

I've checked this alert in SQL Response 1.3 and have to agree with you that SQL Monitor is missing this detail. I have raised an new enhancement request for this work (ref: SRP-3094)

joejf wrote:

Add a comment (for an alert): when adding a comment for 1 or more alerts in the Add a comment popup there should be a check box to also clear the alerts.

SQL Monitor works differently to SQL Response with regards to clearing alerts. Adding a comment to multiple alerts will automatically set them to 'Read'. It's possible to filter out any 'Read' alerts by selecting 'Unread' from the filter box at the top of the Alert Inbox. Clearing alerts will remove them from the Inbox even after selecting the 'All' filter. Do you think this is adequate?

Regards
Chris

Chris Spencer

Re: Enhancements section

joejf wrote:

Alert Inbox: Cannot open several alerts in tabs. If I control click on the row the new alert opens in a new tab in the foreground. The Open link in the Actions drop down does work but that is very inconvenient. Make the Type and/or Object text fields regular links so they will open in the background (when the user wants them to).

I've tried this on a few browsers, IE8, Chrome and Firefox. Am I right in guessing that you're using Firefox as this seems to match the functionality you're describing? I'm finding that the various browsers behave very differently so I can imagine the fix for this will be more difficult than it really needs to be.

joejf wrote:

Alert Inbox: Along withe the previous inconvenience there is no way to navigate between alerts (previous, next). Also, there is no way to get back to the Alerts that you were viewing (with filtering, etc.). You have to reset the Alert Inbox view after viewing every alert.

This has been a much requested feature. An enhancement request exists (ref: SRP-1953) and is set to be fixed for the v2.2 release.

joejf wrote:

Analysis: Allow for comparisons on custom time ranges.

Similarly, this already exists as an enhancement request (ref: SRP-2990) based on this forum post a couple of weeks back:
http://www.red-gate.com/messageboard/vi ... hp?t=12483
This is currently set to be looked at for v2.2 but I can imagine that it's a fair chunk of work and very possibly won't get in.

Regards
Chris

joejf

I apologize for duplicating some existing issues but thank you for your detailed responses.

Comment-Clear. I suggested adding a check box to clear alerts when adding a comment based on the current UI design. In SQL Response when you wanted to clear alerts you were required to comment. That was annoying at times but I would like the ability to add a comment when clearing alerts in one step. Since there is already a popup when adding a comment that seems like a good place to add a check box to also clear the alerts.

Alerts-Tabs. I tested this in both Firefox and IE 8. Basically, the current implementation does not allow the browser to handle opening an alert natively. I would like to see a regular link somewhere on the alert row that would let the browser handle the behavior natively.

Thanks again, Joe

[/quote]

Chris Spencer

Hi

I've raised 2 more enchancement requests to cover these.

Ref: SRP-3127 - Comment-clear checkbox
Ref: SRP-3128 - Add regular link to each alert row.

Thank you for the excellent feedback.

Regards
Chris