PST Flight Deck 9.1.2 - Administration Guide

Consoles

PST Flight Deck consoles are applications that run from the server or an Administrator, Architect, or Operator’s workstation. They permit the most control over a PST Flight Deck environment. There are two consoles available: The PST Flight Deck Administrator Console and the PST Flight Deck Management Console.

The PST Flight Deck Administrator Console (Admin Console) provides the most access to configure a PST Flight Deck environment. It is typically available on the Core server and is installed as an available feature by the Core installer. Access to the Admin Console is required during the initial install, setup, pilot, and ramp-up of your project, but is not typically required for the duration of your project. Alternatively, a project can be entirely managed from the Admin Console if desired.

The PST Flight Deck Management Console (Management Console) is intended to provide operators a client to use on their local workstations. The Management Console provides the options necessary to perform the daily operations of a PST Flight Deck migration without requiring access to a PST Flight Deck server. The primary difference between the two consoles is the Management Console does not have the option for the “Settings” menu as the Admin Console does.

With the exception of the above, both interfaces are the same. The remainder of this section will refer to both as the Console.

Navigation

In general, navigation within the Console is similar no matter where you are in the Console. The core of a Console has a Ribbon Panel, Navigation panel, and the body of the console, where the selected data is displayed.

The top of the Console contains several features and is seen below:

The left side of the Console is used for navigation. The following is an example of the options available within the navigation pane of the console:

The navigation pane has menus at the bottom that act as parent containers for related options within. Selecting one of these menus will expose relevant sub-menus in the navigation pane above. The menus available are Manage, Reports, and Settings.

Managing Console Data

The Consoles have a powerful interface that permits the filtering of live data to return data you are seeking. Many areas of PST Flight Deck return a lot of data that can be too much to be useful without the ability to refine the results. The information below discusses several approaches to managing the data being returned within the grid of several options within the Console.

Columns

Additional data columns can be added to many of the grids in PST Flight Deck.

To access the additional columns of data:

1.Right-click on an existing column heading

2.Select “Column Chooser”

A list of available data columns will be shown. You can drag and drop from the list of columns on to the appropriate part of the user-list.

Sorting

The column headings can be clicked to change the sort order, a subsequent click on the same column heading will change the direction of the sort. Most columns support “drag and drop” functionality to change their position relative to the other data columns. This can make the data more presentable and readable. A data column can be removed if required by right-clicking on the column and choosing the “Remove this Column” option.

Filtering

It is possible to access the data filtering features in most of the Console’s grids in these ways:

1.Right click on the appropriate column heading and choose the option “Filter Editor”

2.Hover near the right hand corner of a column heading until the small filter icon becomes visible, and then click on it

3.By default, the filter entry row is displayed underneath the column headings. A value can be entered into any of the columns in this row and the data list will automatically be filtered according to your input.  Operations can be selected by clicking the small icon (filter hint).  This will show this popup:

Simply click on the desired operator and it will be entered.

After a filter has been applied, an option to “Edit Filter” is presented in the lower right corner of a console. This can be selected to access the advanced editor for the currently applied filter, which will permit you to perform very complex queries to return specific data within a Console.

Grouping

The list of users can be grouped by one or more columns as follows:

1.Right click on an appropriate column heading and choose the option “Group By This Column”.

2.Right click on a column heading and choose the option “Show Group By Box”.

Searching

Filtering can be used to reduce the overall list, but sometimes it is necessary to search for data within a given column. You can search for particular data within a grid by right-clicking on a column heading and selecting the option “Show Find Panel.” Previously used searches can be selected from the dropdown list.

Saving a Layout

If you identify a filter that is useful for your migration it is possible to save it for later use. To store the customized grid click on “Save” in the “Layout” ribbon. Each saved layout can be given a unique name. Previously saved layouts can be retrieved by clicking on “Load” in the “Layout” ribbon bar. The current data list can be reset to the defaults by clicking on “Reset” in the “Layout” ribbon bar. Saved layouts can be retrieved and executed by selecting “Load” on the PST Flight Deck “Layout” ribbon and selecting the name assigned to the saved layout. You can also select “Overwrite” to save over a pre-existing layout or “Delete” to remove the saved layout.

Manage

The “Manage” menu is the most commonly accessed area during a migration. Most of the functionality required for an Operator to manage the PST Flight Deck migration can be found in this section. Options are grouped into sub-menus and are described below:

Hotkeys

Some key combinations have been included to assist in the navigation of the Manage section of the console. The areas affected are frequently navigated between during a migration project. Use of these hotkeys can enable quicker daily navigation.

Additionally, there are shortcut keys associated with specific popup dialog boxes.

Progress

This view provides an overview of the project as a whole. The following are its features:

Operations

A section designed to enable an Operator to quickly be able to tell the current health of a migration in a graphical display. The following are its features:

Resources

This section permits centralized observation of resource consumption of servers running Modules within a specified location. The focus of this is to provide a point in time review of resource consumption and not a comprehensive performance monitor for the PST Flight Deck environment. Displayed is graphical output for CPU, RAM, and disk usage.

Users

This section of the Console is where most actions against users are taken. Assignment of user types, profiles, and priorities are all performed within this section. This sub-menu is where a lot of the migration monitoring and management takes place.

The grid returned under the “Users” sub-menu is comprised of two portions. Initially presented is a display of user information and general statistics about all the users in an AD environment. Each user who has discovered files can be expanded by clicking the plus sign (+) at the left of its row. The resultant sub-table has the same characteristics as the “Files” section and will be described in detail in a succeeding section of this guide. The ribbon and right-click options change depending on which section your selection is located.

The home ribbon when “Users” is selected has options impacting the selected user (with one exception). These options and a description of their functionality are as follows:

The “Action” menu has several options for selection. As with the home ribbon under the “Users” sub-menu, these options are related to the presently selected object in the grid, and changes depending on if that selection is one or many files or users. These options are also available when right-clicking on selection within the grid. The following is a list and description of the options available under the “Action” menu when a user is the selected object:

The type of user designated by the “Change User Type” option can dictate the way the features of the product affect a given user. Below is a list of available types and their description:

Files

The “Files” section of the console is also very commonly accessed while managing a migration. Like the “Users” section, it provides a lot of functionality to determine status and granular details of a migration. Actions can be executed on specific files when appropriate. The options available in the “Files” sub-menu’s home ribbon are as follows:

The “Action” menu has several options for selection. These options are also available when right-clicking on a file within the grid. The following is a list and description of the options available:

Watched items

The Watched items section shows all files and users that have been flagged for watching.  This provides a consolidate view of key items.  The home ribbon for this sub-menu and each action menu changes depending what is selected, a user or a file.  The ribbons and action menu options are the same as their respective.

Events

The Events section shows all unacknowledged events that have occurred on the system since deployed. The default view of the Events grid shows the Type, Source, Event details, a count of the occurrences of the events, the level of severity of the event, and the last logged time for the event. The home ribbon for this sub-menu has the following options:

Owners

Managing owners is a critical part of a successful migration. The Owners section shows the results of our owner identification efforts; including owner conflicts, warning levels, all ownership related metadata, the probability that ownership has been identified, who a presently is the owner of a file, and who PST Flight Deck thinks should be the owner.

In some migrations, a lot of effort is required in the Owners section to ensure the data discovered is going where it is expected to go. Upon discovery, ownership management can begin and drastically reduce the level of effort required towards the middle and end of a migration. Owner management can also be delayed until later in the migration. If file ownership is not addressed early in the project, the files could be blocked from ingestion due to not meeting the minimum ownership probability threshold.

The options on the home ribbon for the Owners sub-menu are as follows: