Monitor the System and Set Alerts

User Roles and Monitoring

If you implemented delegated administration, you created child organizations and user roles that are specific to the child organizations. You might have an Administrator or Scheduler for the child organizations. You might also have Academic Staff for the child organizations.

The tabs visible to you and the information in the tabs depends on your role and on your organization, as detailed in the table below.

Monitor Overall Processing Status

You can find statistics about the overall health of the EchoSystem Server (ESS) on the Summary page. Statistics include the number of system alerts, the status of each active device and media processor, and the system status. All monitoring activities on this tab are done at the system level, meaning you can monitor all capture operations on a given day.

You can also monitor the status of the audio, display, and video signals associated with each capture. A legend is listed next to the Source header of the page explains the meaning of each color for the signal status.

1. Navigate to Monitor > Summary. The Summary tab appears, as shown in the figure below.
   
2. Review the System Alerts, Capture Stations, Media Processors, and System Status information at the top of the page.
3. Click any number in the summary statistics to link to detailed information about it. For example, clicking the number of registered capture stations opens the Devices page within the Configuration tab, where you can view, edit, upgrade, or retire those capture stations.
4. Review the System Status column to see the status of storage volumes.
   
   • Disk space is CRITICAL when a volume has 10 GB (10240 MB) or less of unused storage space
   • Disk space is LOW when a volume has 30 GB (30720 MB) or less of unused storage space
     

Monitor Capture Processing Status

1. Navigate to Monitor > Summary. The Summary tab appears.

2. View the Recent Captures area below the summary statistics, shown in the below figure.  

   

   All recent captures appear on one of four tabs: Scheduled, Capturing, Processing, or Completed, as defined in the table below.

   Capture State	Definition
   Scheduled	A capture that has been scheduled for later today.
   Capturing	A lecture that is currently being captured.
   Processing	A capture or media import that is being processed and packaged for use.
   Completed	A capture that has completed processing and has been published to the selected publisher(s).

3. Find the capture you want to monitor. You can do that in either of the following ways.
   • Search for a capture that meets the search criteria you enter.
   • Browse thecapturesby state by clicking the relevant tab as described in the table above.

4. Review the status of the capture. The following table explains each element of the capture's status.

   Status Element	Definition
   Time	Start and end time of the capture
   Course	The Course Identifier associated with a course in the system
   Room	Physical location where the capture occurs
   Capture Status	Displays the status of the capture of the lecture or external media import. Options are Waiting, Uploading Files, Capturing, Succeeded, Failed, and Missed. A capture that is Failed or Missed will be listed for seven days, then deleted. Missed Captures A missed capture is a scheduled capture that did not start capturing. A capture might be missed if there is not a device in the room, if the scheduled capture was not transmitted to the device in time for the capture to actually start, or a power outage occurred. The System Administrator can troubleshoot a missed capture by monitoring the device and confirming that it is licensed.
   Source	Shows the status of the video, display, and audio signals associated with the capture. The following image explains the color coding of the signal status. The source signal graph only shows the status of the latest 60-minute block of the capture, in one-minute intervals.
   Streaming	If a currently capturing item is a live webcast, the Streaming column provides an icon to indicate whether the expected input is streaming properly, and provides a Monitor link that allows you to open the student view of the webcast to see what is being broadcast in real-time.
   Processing Status	Displays the status of the processing of the capture, which involves packaging the capture into a form that a student, for example, can experience. Options are Succeeded, Failed, License Expired, or Cancelled. About the Succeeded Status It is possible for a capture's processing status to display Succeeded even when the source signal graph shows areas of problems with a source signal. The processing status complements the source signal graph. Succeeded indicates that some signal was successfully captured. Problems in the source signal highlight portions of the captured media that may not have captured the desired content. For example, if the Audio Signal shows as Not Present, perhaps because the microphone was unplugged, the capture's processing status would show as Succeeded but the captured media may have an audio dropout.
   Progress	Displays the percent complete of the processing step.
   Elapsed	Time in hours, seconds, and minutes since processing began. Elapsed Processing Times Please be aware that in situations where jobs are processed back-to-back, the Elapsed column on the Monitor >Summary page will report incorrect values.
   Publishing	If the capture is scheduled to be published, this field shows the name of each publisher (such as RSS or Email) and its status: Success ( ), Pending ( ), Retry ( ), and Failure ( ).
   Alerts	Number of times this capture has raised a publishing alert.

   Sort the list of captures

   You can sort the list of captures for a selected capture state tab by clicking the column name.

Monitor Capture Status

View the status of all captures, including Echoes (lecture captures) and external media imports, on the Captures tab. Click any capture name to view its details.

1. Navigate to Monitor > Captures.
   
2. Find the Echo or media import. You have several choices for finding a capture. Options include the following.
   • Click the All tab and search for a capture by entering a term in the Keyword Search box and then clicking Search.
   • Click the All tab and filter the list of all captures by Date, Course, Presenter, or Room. Select one of these options from the Filter list, optionally enter a date, and then click Search.

   • Filter the list of all captures by clicking the Scheduled, Capturing, Processing, or Completed tab. Each tab corresponds to a capture state. A list of only those captures in the selected state appear.

     Sort the List of Captures

     You can sort the list of captures for a selected capture state tab by clicking the column name.

3. Check the status of the capture by viewing the summary in the capture list. Click the capture name to view the detailed status about the capture, including its history as reported in the system log and full log.

View Capture Details

You can click the name of a capture in the list of captures on the Captures page and the Processing Tasks page to get details about that capture, as well as access to a full log of the capture's processing activity.

1. Navigate to Monitor > Captures.

2. Click the name of the capture in the Title column. The Capture Details page appears, as shown in the figure below.
   
   The following table explains the information on this page.

   Field	Description
   ID	The unique identifier for the capture. Click this link to view the processing log in a new browser window.
   Title	The capture title that the system or the user provided
   Room	Complete location of capture including campus, building, and room
   Start Time	The time when the capture began
   Presenter	The name(s) of the Presenter(s) that the user provided
   Presentation ID(s)	The unique identifier of the processed echo. Click this link to view details about this echo.
   Section	Term, Course and Section IDs
   Status	This capture status
   Duration	The length in time of the capture
   Task ID	The unique identifier for the processing task
   Task Created	The time when the processing task began

3. For additional details about this capture, view one of the logs. Click the System Log button to view the details about the processing of this specific capture. Click the Full Log button to view the complete history of the capture from the time it was scheduled to the time publishing is complete. Both logs open in a new browser window.

   Sort the List of Captures

   You can sort the list of captures for a selected capture state tab by clicking the column name.

Monitor Processing Tasks

On the Processing page, you can see the captures currently being processed and in the queue for processing. In addition to viewing the details of the task in either list, you can prioritize (raise or lower the priority in the list) or cancel the tasks for the ESS in the Queued to be Processed list.

Click any task to view its details, including its history as captured in the system log and full log.

• Navigate to Monitor > Processing Tasks. The Processing Tasks page appears. You can do the following on this page.

  • View information about each capture that is being processed or in the queue for processing. The following table explains this information.

    Field	Description
    Title	Name of the capture being processed or in the queue for processing
    Processor	The MAC of the media processor assigned the processing task
    Pri.	Priority of the capture that is determined by the user. The default, which you may change, is Normal. Options are Low, Normal, and High. Note that you can raise or lower the priority of a capture by hovering your mouse over a capture to highlight it, then clicking raise or lower, as shown in the following figure. Click cancel to cancel the processing of this task.
    Task Created	The date and time when the recording of the capture ended and processing began.
    Next Retry	If the media processors are busy or the media files are uploading, the system enters a time in this field. The default is ASAP.
    Capture Start	The date and time when the recording of the capture began.
    Duration	The length of time of the capture that is in the queue to be processed.
    Room	The room where the capture was recorded

  • Click the capture title to view details about that capture.

  • Change the priority or cancel the processing task. To do so, hover your mouse over a capture to highlight it. Click the raise button to increase the priority of the processing task, the lower button to decrease its priority. Click the cancel button to remove it from the list and either stop all processing tasks in progress or remove those tasks from the processing queue.

    Sort the List of Processing Tasks

    You can sort the list of processing tasks by clicking the column name.

Monitor Personal Capture Devices

This tab lists computers with Personal Capture that have connected to the ESS.

Navigate to Monitor > Personal Capture. The Personal Capture Devices page appears as shown in the below figure.

The following table explains the fields.

Receive Alerts

You can receive alerts that apply to ESS as a whole or to a specific capture. They show if something out of the ordinary has happened on your EchoSystem. For example, if the capture was not licensed or your ESS is out of disk space, you can receive an alert.

You can view a record of all of the alerts that your capture and processing tasks have triggered. This information helps you decide when you might need to reprocess an Echo.

• Navigate to Monitor > Alerts. The Alerts page appears. You can do the following on this page.

  • View the alerts that have been triggered by capture and processing tasks. The following table explains the available status information.

    Field	Description
    Alert Time	The time the alert was triggered
    Triggering Event	The event that caused the alert to be sent
    Time Relative to Trigger	How soon after the triggering event that the ESS sent the alert
    Relates To	Name of the ESS capture or processing task that triggered the alert
    No. of Notifications Sent	Number of emails sent to the ESS administrator about this alert

Receive Email Notifiers

You can set up EchoSystem to send a notifier e-mail if a system alert occurs. Receiving these notifications helps you address potential problems quickly, thereby maintaining system up time. You can view these emails as well as add, edit, and delete them.

These notifier emails are sent through a SMTP server to all registered addresses for certain user roles (Scheduler, Academic Staff, Admin, A/V Technician, and Server Administrator).

View Email Notifiers

1. Navigate to Monitor > Notifiers. The Notifiers page appears.

2. View all email notifications that ESS has sent. The following table explains the information provided about these emails.

   Field	Description
   Name	Name of the email notifier
   Description	Additional information about the email notifier
   Notifier Type	How the notifier was sent. Email is currently the only option.

Add Email Notifiers

1. Navigate to Monitor > Notifiers. The Notifiers page appears.
2. Click Add. The Add Notifier page appears, as shown in the following figure.
   
3. Enter a name for the notifier.
4. Optionally, enter additional information about the notifier.
5. Select a notifier type from the list. Email is currently the only option.
6. Click Save.

Edit Email Notifiers

You may need to edit your email notifiers if you modify your email system; for example, by adding security to the system or changing your email server.

1. Navigate to Monitor > Notifiers. The Notifiers page appears.
2. Highlight a notifier. Two buttons appear.
3. Click edit.
4. Make changes to the notifier as desired.
5. Click Save.

Delete Email Notifiers

If the email notifier has sent an alert (even just once) it cannot be deleted.

Otherwise, follow these steps.

1. Navigate to Monitor > Notifiers.
2. Hover over the notifier to be deleted.
   
3. Click delete.
4. Confirm that you want to delete the notifier.
5. Notice the message confirming deletion at the top of the page.

View and Set Alerts

You can view all alerts configured and specify which alerts selected users should receive. When the administrator configures an alert, he or she subscribes to it on behalf of a selected user role. For example, when triggering events occur, an alert about them is sent only to people with selected roles such as A/V Technician, Server Administrator, and Academic Staff.

The notifier email simply contains the outgoing SMTP server information.

View Alert Settings

Navigate to Monitor > Alert Settings. The Alert Settings page appears, showing all alert settings for all user roles.

Set Alerts to Receive

1. Navigate to Monitor > Alert Settings. The Alert Settings page appears, showing all alert settings for all user roles.
2. From the Role list, select the user role to which you want to send a new alert.
   
3. Select one or more triggering events for which you want to generate an alert to people with this user role.
4. Click Save.

Receive Technical Support

When you need support, navigate to Monitor > Support and share the details there about your ESS to support personnel. You can even upload this information directly to support personnel by clicking the Upload button at the top of the page. Click the logs at the bottom of the page to get details about all recent capture and processing tasks.

View Log Files

Overview

Log files (except for the ess-installer.log) show detailed daily operations by component. You might be asked to send a log file to Technical Support or to look at one while talking with a Technical Support engineer.

• The ess log files (such as ess.20111020.log) show all server-side activity required to make a capture available. Current ESS tasks are shown as active. This file is often used when diagnosing publisher issues.

  • If you are diagnosing issues with a Blackboard integration, consult this KB (Knowledge Base) article (Diagnosing Blackboard Learn 9 publisher failures) for a discussion of log file messages and what they mean.
    
    

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• The request log files (such as request.20111020.log) show every http request being made to the web server. These are typically called "web server access logs". You might view these files with Echo360 Technical Support to discover spurious requests from the server.
• The wrapper log files (such as wrapper.20111020.log) show interaction between the ESS and operating system (Windows, Linux, Mac OS). You might view these files with Echo360 Technical Support when the Java virtual machine (JVS) fails to start.
• The jetty log files (such as jetty.20111016.log) show errors specific to the web server (the Jetty server) as opposed to those that relate to the ESS. You might view these files with Echo360 Technical Support when either the ESS or EchoCenter fails to start. 

Procedure

1. Navigate to Monitor > Support.
2. Scroll down to the Log Files section of the page.
   
3. Click on the desired log file. The file opens in a new tab. The example below shows an ESS log file.