Defining and Using Custom Fields

The Custom Fields page (Settings icon > General Settings > Custom Fields) enables you to define custom data fields for uncovering and recording any information about network devices, changes and jobs. For devices, custom fields are useful for recording important c ontextual data such as asset tag numbers and physical location — information that NetMRI does not gather on its own.
Administrators can add extensible data in the following contexts, with examples suggested for each:

• Interfaces: Creates Interface Custom Fields. Update and augment information on interfaces with usage codes, or allowing usage designation of interfaces for Tier 1 tracking.
• Components — Creates Components Custom Fields. Update information for components such as line cards with serial numbers that are collected by custom CLI interrogation or asset tag numbers.
• Jobs — Creates Job Custom Fields. Update job definitions with custom information, including trouble ticket values or simple 'notes';
• Devices — Creates Device Custom Fields. Custom data can apply to almost any phenomenon involving devices, such as provisional IPv6 values for devices whose kernels do not yet support IPv6; custom output messages, different identification fields, and other information. You may use device custom fields in device group definitions to help match discovered and managed devices against logically named device groups. For information on how do so, see Understanding Device Group Membership Criteria and its subsection Device Group Criteria and Device Custom Fields;
• Changes — Creates Change Custom Fields. Add new fields to help keep track of changes in the network.

The entire Custom Fields feature set enables association of NetMRI to other operational systems and operational data, for better integration into organizational processes for asset management and other purposes.

Custom fields you define in this page can be populated with data in the following locations:

• For devices: Device Viewer > Device/Network Explorer section > Custom Data.
  • As noted, you can edit the Device Group Criteria field for any device group to enable the use of custom fields as matching criteria in devices;
• For jobs: In the Job Wizard available via the New button; and the Edit button in Configuration Management > Job Management > Scheduled Jobs.
• For changes: In Network Analysis > Changes.
• For Interfaces: Interface Viewer > Interface>Custom Data.
• For Components: Device Viewer > Device/Network Explorer > Component Inventory.

To create a custom data field, do the following:

1. In the upper left corner of the Settings icon > General Settings > Custom Fields page, open the Type menu and select a custom data type (Changes, Devices, Interfaces, Jobs or Components). For device group matching, for example, choose Devices.
2. Click New. The Add custom field value dialog appears.
3. Enter a new Name for the field.Open the Type list and select a field type (Date, Number or String) appropriate for the kind of data to be recorded in the field.
4. To create more than one field, click Save. The new field is added to the table in the background. You can enter another custom field using steps 4 & 5.
5. When finished, click Save & Close.

Consider the following regarding custom field names:

• Do not use suffixes “_changed?”, “_change”, “_will_change!”, and “_was” in custom field names as such names cannot be created in NetMRI.
• If you use spaces and hyphens in custom field names, replace them by underscores in jobs or other places where they are used. This is due to internal NetMRI mapping of spaces and hyphens in custom field names to underscores. For example, if you define a custom field name as “external device” or “external-device”, specify it as “external_device” for a device group membership criteria, otherwise the field will not be accepted.

To edit a custom data field, do the following:

1. In the upper left corner of the Settings icon > General Settings > Custom Fields page, open the Type menu and select a custom data type: Changes, Devices, Interfaces, Jobs or Components.
2. Click the Edit button for the field. The Edit custom field definition dialog appears.
3. Change the Name or Type as needed.
4. Click Save & Close.

To delete a custom data field, do the following:

1. In the upper left corner of the Settings icon > General Settings > Custom Fields page, open the Type menu and then select the custom data type.
2. Click the Action icon for the field and then choose Delete.
3. Click Yes.