About the User Interface

This article provides information about accessing and navigating in Skylight orchestrator.

Supported Web Browsers

The Skylight orchestrator user interface is entirely web-based. The user interface has been tested with the following web browsers to ensure they provide an optimal user experience:

• Mozilla Firefox version 52 and higher
• Google Chrome version 70 and higher
• Minimum screen resolution of 1366 x 768.

Logging in to Skylight orchestrator

Administrators define user accounts in the Admin ▶ Users page. When you have your account, you can log in as explained below.

To log in to Skylight orchestrator

1. Open a supported browser. See the list of "Supported Web Browsers".

2. Enter the following URL in the browser's address bar: http://< serverIPaddres>
   The login dialog is displayed.
   

3. Enter your Username and Password and click the Login button.
   The credentials for the default user account are:
   Username: admin
   Password: 2admin$admin

The following pop-up dialog will appear:

4. Click Ok to continue.

Changing Your Password

To change your password

1. Log in to Skylight orchestrator with the user account whose password you want to change.

2. From the Admin Tab, double click the admin link for your username.
   The User configuration dialog is displayed.

3. Enter your current password in the Current password field.

4. Enter the new password in the New password field.

5. Enter the new password again in the Confirm password field.

6. Click Apply, then click Close to close the dialog.
   The new password is effective immediately.

Main Page Overview

After you log in, you land on the main page of the Skylight orchestrator web interface. The following image points out some of the main features of the interface.

The main menu in the navigation pane gives access to the main functions of Skylight orchestrator. When you select a function in the main menu, the content of the page is updated.

The tabs at the top of the page depend on the function selected in the main menu. Many tabs display information in lists. These features are available for lists:

• Toolbar (above the list) includes controls that allow you to add and remove items from the list and to filter the list.
• Status bar (below the list) includes controls that allow you to navigate through the list and refresh the list.
• Edit filters button (above the list) opens the Search filters dialog.
• Saved filters (above the list) contains a drop-down list of saved filters. You can select a saved filter directly from this list.
• Add filter button (above the list) displays a drop-down list with available filter labels for the present screen.
• Search bar (above the list) displays selected filter tiles. Each title indicates an individual label and filter criterion.
• Pin / Unpin results button (above the list) allows the user to create a custom list of items from the search results.

All pages share the following features at all times:

• Help - Gives you access to the online version of this user guide and displays the version of Skylight orchestrator software that is currently installed.
• User profile - Shows name of the user that is currently logged in. You can click this link to change the user password.
• Log out - Log out of Skylight orchestrator.
• Alarm indicator - Displays current alarm information: total number of alarms and the highest level of severity of any present alarm.
• Dashboard - Gives you a high-level statistical view of the particular page you are viewing.

Refreshing Page Contents

Most pages in the user interface display information that is stored in the Skylight  data store. You can manually refresh the information displayed on a page or you can enable automatic refresh of page content.

Changes made and applied in the user interface are updated in real time in the data store. The data displayed in the user interface reflect the content of the data store at the moment you logged in or after a refresh (manual or automatic).

Two buttons in the interface are related to refreshing the data displayed:

• Refresh button (in bottom right corner of most pages) updates the content of the page from the Skylight orchestrator data store.
• Resync devices button (in toolbar on the Devices ▶ Managed Elements page) synchronizes devices and the Skylight orchestrator data store. For more information, see "Resyncing Network Elements and Skylight orchestrator".

To manually refresh the contents of a page
Click the Refresh button .

To enable automatic updating of a particular page
Check the box beside the Refresh button .
On certain pages, the auto-refresh checkbox is enabled by default.
The content of the page will be updated from the data store every 15 seconds.

Filtering Lists

The default behavior for lists in the user interface is to display all available data. The Search filters tool allows you to filter the contents of a list so that only relevant entries are displayed. Search filters can be created, saved and reused.

The Add filter button displays a drop-down list with available filter labels for the current screen.

To create and save a search filter using the Search filters dialog

1. Click the button to display the Search filters dialog.
   

2. Enter a name in the Filter name field.

3. Complete the query fields as required.
   

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   Notes:
   You can enter an asterisk ( * ) in any of the fields to replace one or several characters.
   For example, given the following items:
   • 'a'
   • ‘ab’
   • ‘abc’
   • 'b'
   • ‘bc’

   The logic would be:

   • If the user types the wildcard '*' in the middle or at the beginning of the search text, then filters as usual with the user provided search text.
     For example, search text: ‘b’, results would include: ‘ab’, ‘abc’, 'b', ‘bc’

   • If the user does not type the wildcard '*', then it is assumed implicitly as being at the end of the provided search text.
     For example, search text: ‘a’, results would include: ‘a’, ‘ab’, 'abc’

   • If the user types the wildcard '' only at the end of the search text, then the wildcard is removed and use it implicitly; same as the case (2) above.
     For example, search text: ‘a'; on enter, the search text becomes 'a', results would include: ‘a’, ‘ab’, 'abc’

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4. Click the button to save your search filter.
   

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   Note: You can click the Clear button to clear the filter and start over before saving it. If you change the criteria for a selected saved filter, a warning icon appears notifying you that the filter has been modified but not saved. To dismiss this icon, you must save the modified filter by clicking the button.

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5. Click Apply.
   The entries displayed in the table are filtered, and your query string appears in the Search bar. Clicking the button at the end of the Search bar will remove the filter.
   

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   Note: Lists can be filtered without saving a search filter simply by completing the query fields and clicking Apply. If you change a filter criterion in the Search Bar, the change is reflected in the Search filters dialog. Similarly, if you change a filter criterion in the Search filters dialog, the change is reflected in the Search bar.

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To create and save a search filter using the Add filter button

1. Click the Add filter button .
   A drop-down list with the available filter labels for the current screen will be displayed.
   

   ---

   Note: You can select a filter by clicking its label or search for a filter by typing the first letter of its name.

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2. Select the required filter.
   A form with a downwards arrow icon is displayed.

3. Enter a value for the selected filter.

4. Click Apply.
   The entries displayed in the table are filtered, and your query string appears in the Search bar. You can remove the filter individually by clicking the Remove filter button on the filter tile.
   Clicking the Clear filters button at the end of the Search bar will remove all filters.
   

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   Notes:
   You can change the filter value by clicking the downwards arrow, typing a new filter and clicking Apply. You can remove the filter value by clicking the downwards arrow, selecting the Erase field button and clicking Apply.
   For date related filters, the current date and time is the default value and a calendar is displayed, allowing the user to select another date as well as the precise hour and minutes. For filters involving multiple options, all possible options will be displayed in the form.

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To filter a list using an existing search filter

1. Click the Edit filters button to display the Search filters dialog.

2. Select a filter in the Saved filters drop-down list.
   Alternatively, you may disregard Step 1 and select a filter in the Saved filters drop-down list next to the Search bar.

   When using an existing search filter, you do not need to click Apply in the Search filters dialog. The entries displayed in the table are filtered, and your query string appears in the Search bar.
   

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   Notes:
   Lists can be filtered without saving a search filter simply by completing the query fields and clicking Apply.
   Any search filter that was previously saved can be deleted by selecting it in the Saved filters drop-down list, clicking the button and confirming that you want to delete the selected filter.

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Pinning

Pinning provides the user with the ability to create a custom list of items from the search results. After running a query, the user can:

• Pin individual items independently by clicking the pin/unpin button available at the end of each line in the grid.
• Pin all items from the current result (if there are multiple pages, items from all the pages are pinned) clicking the Pin results button, which is last button in the toolbar, and then Pin all.
• Unpin all items from the current result by clicking Pin results button and then Unpin all.
• Clear the pinned list by clicking Pin results button and then Clear all pinned.
• See how many items are in the pinned list by clicking the Pin results button / label with count at the end of the drop-down menu.

In addition, the user can add to the pinned list from different searches and can switch from the Search view, the default view, to the Pinned view.

• Click Pin results button; Switch to Pinned view.
• To revert back to Search view when in Pinned view, click Pin results button and then Switch to Search view.

In Pinned view the user can:

• Unpin individual items independently by clicking the pin/unpin button on each line of the grid
• Clear the pinned list by clicking Pin results button and then Clear all pinned.

Pinning has been enabled for these grids:

• Devices/Managed elements
• Devices/Unmanaged elements
• Devices/Modules & SPFs
• Devices/Reflectors
• Sessions
  

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  Notes:
  The pinned view works in a similar way as the default search view; the difference being that the search results are also implicitly filtered by the IDs of the pinned items.

  
  The saved queries are not available in the pinned view. The saved queries drop-down menu is replaced by a label indicating that the grid is currently displaying the Pinned view.

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Configuring Table Layout

You can move and resize the columns in most of the tables that are displayed in the user interface. You reorganize them by dragging and dropping the columns. You resize them by dragging the edge of the column.

Click the column header to sort the contents in ascending order. Click the header again to sort the contents in descending order.

Right-click in the header or click the downward arrow on the right of the column header for more options. The context menu shown in the figure below is displayed.

The following table describes the items in the pop-up menu.

Column Options

When configuring the layout of a table, you can define different levels of criteria by selecting the Configure Sort option and setting the sorting criteria. Then you enter the sort criteria and click Apply.

Exporting a Table to a CSV File

Most tables/lists in the user interface can be exported to a Comma-Separated Values (CSV) file. You can set the default directory for storing CSV files.

When CSV files are saved, the table properties set in the user interface are used. The column and sort order in the CSV file reflect the current column and sort order in the table displayed on-screen. This allows you to customize exported files to include specific columns of interest and to set the order of the columns. The Admin ▶ Users table is an exception: the content of the export is fixed.

To export a table to a CSV file

1. Display the table that you want to export.

2. If you want to customize the columns that will be exported or change the order of the columns, right-click on the table heading and make the desired changes. For more information, see "Configuring Table Layout".

3. Click the Export results to CSV button (at the right end of the toolbar).

4. If the result set contains more than 1000 rows, you will be prompted to confirm the operation. Click the OK button to proceed.

Accessing Online Help and Determining Version of Skylight orchestrator

The button allows you to:

• Access the online version of Skylight orchestrator User material.
• Determine the version of Skylight orchestrator software that is currently installed.

Logging Out of Skylight orchestrator

To log out, click the button.