Displaying data on a big display is something challenging; first of all, you need to know who your target will be, their skills, and which role they exactly cover. After that, it is important to see where the screen is physically and its resolution.
You will most probably need to create an ad hoc screen for a big display to fit better on a widescreen. Screens for widescreen need to be developed horizontally. Most of the screens are usually developed with a web page in mind, so most probably they need to be scrolled down and up to read all the graphs. Such kinds of screens will not fit on your widescreen.
You need to bear in mind that the slide show doesn't scroll up and down automatically. You can add JavaScript to make it possible, but it is really complex to implement a screen that will rightly handle this scrolling up and down, and all this effort can be hardly justified. It is better and more productive to produce screens such that slide shows fit in the screen dimensions and resolution.
Once you have understood who your target is, their knowledge, and the typology of the work they do, you are already in a stable position. Now you can apply best practices that are generally useful when you need to show data on a big display. Basically, they need to be one of the following:
- Easy to read (comprehensible)
- Fit the big screen display
- Non-interactive
- Delay between the screens should be chosen as appropriate
First of all, keep things easy. This is a general rule: the easier the representations, the less the effort required by the helpdesk to read them. An easy and comprehensive screen will improve the helpdesk's reaction, which is our goal. You need to provide information in the best way. Never overload your screen with information; you need to choose the right amount of information to be displayed, and the fonts need to be comprehensive. Essentially, you need to choose which cut will have every screen, and the challenge is to choose how to display your monitored services.
If you need to monitor a large number of services, you need to choose the time to change the slide; don't spend too much time on the same screen. Keeping a screen for too much time on the monitor can become annoying, especially when the helpdesk is waiting to see the next slide. Unfortunately, there isn't a rule; you need to spend time with the first-level support and check with them as to what is the perfect timing.
One thing that simplifies the work is that you don't need to think about complex screens. A widescreen display doesn't need the drill-down feature implemented. People will just look at the screen, and the analysis will be done from their workstation.
Triggers are always welcome as they are easy to read, comprehensive, and immediate. But take care not to fill a page with them as it will then be unreadable.
Once your slides are created and you are ready to run them, it is time to think about the user. Your widescreen and the relative workstation dedicated to this task need to have an account for sure.
In a real-world scenario, we do not want to see the login page on a big display. To avoid this, it is better to create a dedicated account with some customization.
The requirements are as follows:
- Avoid automatic disconnection
- Avoid the clicks needed to display the slide show
Both these features will be appreciated by your helpdesk.
To avoid automatic disconnection, there is a flag on the user configuration form that is designed just for that—the Auto-login flag. Once selected, you need to log in only the first time.
Now since you have created a dedicated account, you need to customize the URL (after logging in) section; here, you need to link the URL to your screen.
To retrieve the appropriate URL, browse to your slide show and copy your link. For this example, the link would be http://<your-zabbix-server> /zabbix/slides.php?sid=4258s278fa96eb&form_refresh=1&fullscreen=0&elementid=3.
Basically, you need to know the elementid value of your slide show. In the following URL, you can remove the sid parameter. The definitive URL in our case will be http://<your-zabbix-server> /zabbix/slides.php? form_refresh=1&fullscreen=0&elementid=3.
Now this account has a first page. After login, the slide show starts in the fullscreen mode with really little human interaction.