Orion Platform 2016.1: User interface improvements

This topic applies to all SolarWinds Platform (self-hosted) products.

In Orion Platform 2016.1, we've given the entire SolarWinds Orion user interface an overhaul, and updated the navigation scheme and the notification feature.

Navigation

All of your products and views are now located under My Dashboards.

Single product deployment

Multi-product deployment

Menu scaling

We have designed an option that you can use to expand or collapse the Web Console menu.

Expanded menu example

An expanded menu shows all products and views on a single page. This option works just fine for limited deployments of SolarWinds Orion, but when you start adding more products, you'll need a scroll bar to help you find the right dashboard.

To make better use of the My Dashboards space, click Collapse at the bottom.

Collapsed menu example

A collapsed menu uses a slide-out menu to provide access to views. If you have multiple products, a collapsed menu makes navigation easier and scales better in large deployments of SolarWinds.

Click Expand at the bottom of the page to switch to an expanded menu.

Important menu items are now more visible

We've moved important options to the main menu, including Alerts, Reports, and Settings.

Menu customization

Administrators can now more easily access the menu editor. Just click the Configure button under My Dashboards, and then add and remove menu items as usual.

You can also control the items that are shown on the Alerts & Activity menu.

Click Settings > All Settings in the menu bar.
In the User Accounts grouping, click Manage Accounts.
Select a User, and click Edit.
Select Yes for the items the user will see in the Alerts & Activity menu bar.

Notifications

We have redesigned the notifications feature so that messages are now displayed in a drop-down widget instead of across the length of the SolarWinds Platform Web Console. The new notifications feature takes less room on the page, which reduces clutter.

To view notifications, click the notifications icon located in the upper right of the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.

Visual refresh

In this release we have given the user interface an overhaul. The design of the new user interface:

Minimizes the space used by the header and makes more room for the data.
Eliminates visual noise to help you focus on what is important, such as status, exceeded thresholds, and alerts.
Simplifies the layout while supporting considerable information. The new user interface offers a roomy, clean visual design, and shows data in proximity with other necessary pieces of information.