Dashboard Overview

The RUCKUS Analytics dashboard provides a summary of the network health and incident occurrences across the system. The dashboard is a starting point for network administrators seeking specific work-flows and issues that may require attention. Refer to Navigating the RUCKUS Analytics User Interface more information.

RUCKUS Analytics Dashboard
The dashboard comprises a number of components that provide a summary of network health:
Table 1. Dashboard Elements
Callout Number Dashboard Elements
1 Time Selection field
2 Incident Selection
3 Scrolling Data tile
4 Incident Types tile
5 Critical Incidents tile
6 Network History tile
7 Incident Summary tile
8 Interactive Network Hierarchy
9 Settings

Melissa AI Assistant

Melissa AI Assistant
The RUCKUS Analytics also offers a beta version of our virtual network assistant Melissa, which provides a conversational AI interface for you to interact with and understand more about your network. It provides intelligent and helpful answers to your questions. This feature is especially helpful for IT administrators as it reduces the effort to manually navigate through the user interface to analyze information about the network. Based on the questions asked, Melissa interprets user intent and provides responses, thereby providing a logical flow to the conversation and enhancing user experience; much like talking to an administrator for support. Additionally, all the intents and the training phases are enhanced so that it can understand, interact and provide better answers to questions. It also has the capability to now directly navigate to the required link in the page while you continue your conversation. The Melissa AI assistant is available throughout the application. Following are some questions (not limited to) that you can use to converse with Melissa.
  • How’s my network today?
  • What are the top applications?
  • How is client Rob doing?
  • How many incidents are there in Zone Lobby yesterday?
  • Is Zone Boardroom meeting expectations?
  • Which WLAN is the busiest?
  • Show me client office-laptop at 2pm.

    Using key identification words like client, zone, system, etc. before the name will ensure a faster response from Melissa as names are often non-unique strings. Full names are not necessary as Melissa has the capabilities for partial search. You could also indicate the time periods by using terms like today, yesterday, last week, 3pm, etc.

The current release of the product also has improved support for queries from Melissa AI. You can now:
  • Check the status of devices (APs, clients, and switches) and troubleshoot issues
  • Check the status of incidents and nodes
  • Check network SLAs, traffic load on the network, and status of Zoom video call tests
  • Create a support ticket through the chat box and also track it. You can review the status of the ticket by entering the ticket number in the chat box.
  • Verify top applications, SSIDs, APs, zones and clients, configuration changes
Here is an example to find out the configuration changes that have occurred in the last month. The assistant also provides a link to the Config Change page for further analysis.
Example: Viewing Config Changes for the Last Month
Here is an example to create a support case from the assistant:
Creating a Support Case Using the Assistant
Here is an example to find the traffic trend in the network for the past week:
Traffic Trend for the Specified Week

Melissa is still in beta phase and we are constantly training the algorithm to interpret more intents and increase the breadth of coverage.

Time Selection Field

The Time Selection field is located in the upper-right corner of the dashboard. You can view elements within the dashboard based on predefined time periods, such as the last hour, the last 24 hours, and the last 7 days. The default view is the last 24 hours.
Note: Time selection is a global option that affects all the measurements shown on the dashboard.

Incident Selection

The dashboard data is displayed based on the type of incident category selected. You can choose to view incidents based on Connections, Performance, and Infrastructure. You can select one or more of these options at a time. Select the incident category and click Apply to view the relevant data reflected on the dashboard.
Note: Category selection is a global option that affects all the measurements shown on the dashboard.

Scrolling Data Tile

The scrolling data tile is located in the upper-left corner of the dashboard and provides a scrolling summary of key usage metrics.

Scrolling Data Tile

The scrolling data tile maintains five layers of data, as shown in the following table. The scroll mechanism displays a different layer of data every two seconds. If you click one of the tiered layers, the data for that layer of data is displayed. If you click the displayed data result, the relevant data report in the Reports menu is displayed.

Table 2. Layers of Scrolling Data Tile
Tile Data Description Link Destination
AP Count Shows the number of unique APs supported by, and reporting data into, the system. The AP Inventory report focuses on AP details and inventory.
Unique Clients Shows the number of unique clients that have connected in the displayed time window. The Client report focuses on client, device, and user details.
Traffic Shows a sum of traffic sent and received by all APs in the displayed time window. The Network report focuses on network and traffic usage.
Applications Shows the total number of detected applications in the displayed time window. The Application report focuses on application consumption.
Active WLANs Shows the total number of WLANs that have been active on APs (client has connected) in the displayed time window. The WLANs report focuses on WLAN traffic, client, and usage details.

Incident Types Tile

The incident types tile shows the types of incidents, the number of incidents of each type, and the relative severity of the incidents. Incidents are categorized into three primary incident types: Connection, Performance, and Infrastructure. Each incident type contains many subtypes.

Incident Types Tile

Critical Incidents Tile

The critical incidents tile list the severity of the incident, the type of the incident, and the time the incident occurred.

If you click one of the incidents, the specific incident is displayed on the Incident Details page.

Critical Incidents Tile

Network History Tile

The network history tile represents the number of clients serviced by the network (the gray lines in the chart), and the number of clients affected by incidents (the blue area in the chart).

The client count value in the chart includes all unique clients that attempted to connect to the network, including both failed and successful connections. The data depicts a large number of clients that may be impacted by incidents, even if a large number were not able to connect.

Network History Tile

Incident Summary Tile

The incident summary tile offers a summation of the overall network status and compares the severity levels of each incident on the selected network. Each severity level is identified by priority and color. To explore the analytics details or view incidents of a specific layer of hierarchy, click See Incidents.

Incident Summary Tile

The following table lists the incident severity level, the priority, and the color assigned to the incident severity level.

Table 3. Severity Levels of an Incident
Incident Priority Color
P1 Critical Red
P2 High Dark Orange
P3 Medium Orange
P4 Low Yellow

Interactive Network Hierarchy

The interactive network hierarchy is introduced by using circle packing. Circle packing is a hierarchical representation of the network that illustrates the controller clusters, domains, zones, AP groups, and individual APs visually. You can identify the areas of the network that are impacted by issues or showing problems.

The interactive network hierarchy is introduced by using circle packing. Circle packing is a hierarchical representation of the network that illustrates the Venues, AP groups, and individual APs visually. You can identify the areas of the network that are impacted by issues or showing problems.

The size of a circle depends on the number of APs. You can navigate within each circle, exploring layers within the hierarchy by clicking the circles themselves. The boundary of a circle indicates that there are incidents occurring within it. To view the analytics details or the incidents of a specific hierarchical layer, click See Incidents in the incident summary tile.

Circle Packing Example

Interactive Network Topology

The network topology page is interactive and displays the arrangement of various types of elements within the network such as switches, routers, port connections and so on.

Interactive Network Topology

You can also use the search bar to look for devices (AP or switch) within the network topology diagram either with their name or MAC address. By clicking on the switch group icon (), you can expand and view the devices within the group such as routers, APs (). The switch group can have a stack of switches as well. If the network contains devices other than ICX switches and RUCKUS APs, the device is displayed against this icon - . Pause the pointer over the icons for more information about the devices and over the lines for more information about the port connections. For example, the port connections are displayed as Connection Port: 1/1/35 <-> eth1 which implies that the ports 1/1/35 of the switch are connected to the eth1 port of the AP. In the switch ports representation, the first number represents the first switch in the group or stack, the next number represents the switch module, and the last number the switch port. Clicking Reset View collapses all the device views and resets the network topology connection diagram.

You can zoom-in or zoom-out the Topology page and also click on the page to move it.

You can also use the Auto Update feature to update the dashboard data, every 3 minutes.

Settings

You can modify the user profile from the My Profile Settings page and enable the option to receive notification email alerts for incidents of varying severity ranging from P1 to P4.

Accessing Settings

Click Edit and select the check boxes to indicate the incident severity range or license expiration time for which you want to receive email notifications.

Enabling Email Notifications
An email notification typically contains a short description about the incident and also provides a summary with the following details:
  • Client Impact: Displays the estimated percentage of clients impacted due to the incident.
  • Category: Displays the type of issue impacting the client. For example, if the time to connect to the network is high, the Category would be displayed as "Connection". Other options include "Infrastructure" and "Performance".
  • Sub Category: Displays the subcategory of the incident. For example, if the time to connect to the network is high, the Subcategories would vary based on the three categories (Connection, Infrastructure, and Performance). For more information, refer to the "Incidents List Table" and "Incidents Details Page" in Analytics Page.
  • Network Path: Displays the location of the client within the network.
  • Event Start Time: Displays the timestamp of the event when it occurred.

A link to view the incident details is also available in the email notification.

Sample Email Notification

Accounts

The Accounts page displays the total number of third-party user accounts, role associated with the user account, name of the inviter and the status of the invitation. Users can Accept or Reject the invitation. If an invitation is rejected, it is immediately removed from the account. Invitations that are accepted are included to the account.
Accounts Page
Note: Registered users can have multiple accounts and can toggle between these accounts to operate. The user interface changes based on the account selection.

Users with one account will be directed to the Dashboard view of the RUCKUS Analytics user interface, by default. Those with multiple accounts will be directed to the Accounts page soon after logging into the RUCKUS Analytics user interface so they can choose the account to operate from.