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PRTG Manual: General Layout

<%NUMBERING1%>.<%NUMBERING2%>.<%NUMBERING3%> PRTG Manual: General Layout

This section provides a general overview of the structure of the PRTG web interface. The central focus is the Devices view, which you can select via the main menu bar. The Devices view presents the device tree and your monitoring results.

Welcome Page

When you log in to the PRTG web interface, you see the Welcome page by default. You can set a different homepage in your account settings, section Web Interface.

Click View Results to open the device tree.

Tree View Layout

Click View Results on the Welcome page to display the device tree.

Device Tree

From top to bottom, the device tree screen has several areas that are covered in further detail in this section. For a general overview of the device tree, consider the table below.

Screen Number	Page Area Name	Description
1	Global Header Area	This area contains the main menu at the very top, the global status bar, the path to the selected object, and a quick search box.
2	Page Header Bar	This area contains the page heading with the name of the selected object, several tabs with settings, monitoring data of the object, and quick action buttons.
3	Page Content	This area contains information about the selected object and all other objects underneath in the tree hierarchy, the object's status bar, a quick search box, and the QR code that links to the URL of the selected page.
4	Viewing options	These buttons are part of the page content. Here you can adjust how your device tree is displayed.
5	Page Footer	Shows information about the version of PRTG, the logged in user account, and the time (depending on the time zone settings for the logged in user). A timer counts down how much time remains until the next automatic page refresh. You can pause the refresh timer with the pause icon and resume with the play icon. If you open another page while the refresh timer is paused, the timer resumes automatically and starts with the defined Auto Refresh Interval (Sec.) that you can configure in your account settings. Long table lists that are set to display 1000 items at a time are excluded from the automatic refresh to ensure system performance.
	Page Footer Icons	With these icons, you have quick access to auto-update settings if a new version is available and to the contact support form. There is also a link to context-sensitive help. If you run PRTG in a cluster, you also see a cluster-related element. It shows the name of the cluster node that you are logged in to and displays whether this is a master node or a failover node. Click the bar to show the cluster status. On a failover node, you can review all data, but changes in the settings are not saved. In order to change the settings, log in to the master node.

Click an object to see its details. In the page heading of the page header bar, you always see the name of the object that you have selected.

When you navigate the PRTG web interface, the following paths are available:

The main menu provides access to all important aspects of the software.
The quick search is often the fastest way to find a specific object (for example, a sensor or a device).
Use the page tabs to switch between various subpages.
Right-click objects to open a context menu.
Hover over objects to display tool tips, and hover longer to open a quick-access window (hover popup).
Drill down into the object hierarchy of probes, groups, devices, and sensors in the object tree. To do so, click a subobject of the displayed object (for example, click a sensor on a device's Overview tab).

These navigation paths offer complete access to the functionality of PRTG.

In the following sections, we describe the different areas of the PRTG web interface.

Global Header Area

The header area of the PRTG web interface provides central, very condensed information about your installation and offers access to all content and every setting. The following table lists the elements that make up the global header area.

This documentation refers to an administrator accessing the PRTG web interface on a master node. If you use other user accounts, interfaces, or failover nodes, you might not see all of the options in the way described here. If you use a cluster installation, note that failover nodes are read-only by default.

Screen Number	Part	Description
1	Main Menu Bar	To navigate through the PRTG web interface, the main menu is the best starting point. We recommend that you take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the menu bar and its submenus. For more information, see section Main Menu Structure.
2	New Alarms, New Log Entries, New Tickets	The information boxes show how many new alarms, new log entries, and updated tickets have occurred. Click the respective box to view the lists of alarms, logs, or tickets.
3	Global Sensor Status Symbols	This area shows the accumulated states of all sensors you have configured for monitoring, grouped into the different sensor states. You see colored boxes with numbers that symbolize the amount of sensors that are in the respective status. For example, you can see how many sensors are in Up, Down, or Warning status. Click a box to view a list of all sensors in the respective status. For more information, see section Sensor States.
4	Search Box, Logout	Via the icons in the top-right corner, you can start a search or log out. To search for an object, enter a name, parts of a name, an IP address, a DNS name, or a tag in the search box on the right and confirm with enter. PRTG performs a string search in your entire monitoring setup, including groups, devices, sensors, libraries, maps, reports, tickets, and object comments. A page opens with the items that are related to the search term and also online help articles.
5	Breadcrumbs	Below the main menu, PRTG shows a path that retraces the steps back to the Welcome page (or your defined starting page). Use these breadcrumbs to quickly jump back to where you came from. If you click the down arrow on a breadcrumb item, a dropdown list opens that shows all objects on the same level. You can either search for an object or select one directly. For example, you can directly access all other sensors on a device, other devices within a group, and other groups on the same probe. Other probes in your root group are also available.

Page Header Bar

The page header bar below the global header area consists of a number of elements shown in the table below.

Page Header Bar

Screen Number	Part	Description
1	Page Heading	This line displays the selected object's type and name as the page heading. In the screenshot, it is a group that is called Root. Here you can define the object's priority. To do so, click one of the five stars (not available for the root group). For more information, see section Priority and Favorites.
2	Context Buttons	On the right side is a row of icons for several actions. Depending on the selected page, you can pause (and resume) the object. You can also add a new object (for example, a sensor to a device), send a link to the selected page per email, perform an immediate scan, open a related ticket, or show the object's history page. Click the down arrow to open the context menu of the selected object for further options. For more information, see section Context Menus.
3	Tabs	Via tabs you can navigate to the various subpages of an object, for example, to its monitoring data or settings. For more information, see sections Review Sensor Data and Change Device and Sensor Settings.

Screen Number

Part

Description

Page Heading

This line displays the selected object's type and name as the page heading. In the screenshot, it is a group that is called Root. Here you can define the object's priority. To do so, click one of the five stars (not available for the root group).

For more information, see section Priority and Favorites.

Context Buttons

On the right side is a row of icons for several actions. Depending on the selected page, you can pause (and resume) the object. You can also add a new object (for example, a sensor to a device), send a link to the selected page per email, perform an immediate scan, open a related ticket, or show the object's history page.

Click the down arrow to open the context menu of the selected object for further options.

For more information, see section Context Menus.

Tabs

Via tabs you can navigate to the various subpages of an object, for example, to its monitoring data or settings.

For more information, see sections Review Sensor Data and Change Device and Sensor Settings.

Page Content

The page content of the general layout varies depending on the selected object. It shows information about the object and all other objects underneath it in the tree hierarchy. The deeper down in the hierarchy that you select an object, the more detailed is the displayed information.

Page Content

Screen Number	Part	Description
1	Sensor Status Bar	This element is visible when you view a probe, a group (including the root group), or a device. It is not available on a sensor's Overview tab. The sensor status bar shows the accumulated states of all sensors for the selected object, grouped into different sensor states. They show the number of sensors in the respective status. For example, you can see how many sensors are in Up, Down, or Warning status. You can hide sensors that are in a certain status via the check mark in front of the status. To show them again, add the check mark again. For a detailed description of sensor states, see section Sensor States
2	Viewing options	This element is only visible when you view a probe or a group. It is not available when you view device or sensor details. For a detailed description, see Switch Device Tree View below.
3	Tree Search	In the white search box to the right of the tree view selection, enter a key word to search the device tree for matching items. The tree highlights matching devices and sensors by graying out all others. This gives you a quick overview over sensors that monitor a specific part of your network. For example, you can enter the keyword "firewall" to highlight devices and sensors that match this name.
4	Add Button	Use this button to add new objects to your monitoring setup. For a detailed description, see Add Button below.
5	Object Status, Scanning Interval, Object ID, QR Code	This element displays the status of the selected object, the time interval in which PRTG scans the object, the ID of the object, and the QR code for the selected page. If you use a PRTG mobile app, you can scan the code to view the object directly on your mobile device. Click the QR code to enlarge it for scanning. Depending on the object type, this element shows additional information: All objects underneath the root group show their dependency. Groups and devices display the time elapsed since the last execution of the auto-discovery on the selected object. Devices show their respective Domain Name System (DNS) name or IP address as defined in the device settings and the time elapsed since the last execution of the sensor recommendation on this device. Sensors show additional monitoring statistics as well as their performance impact.

Switch Device Tree View

Wherever a probe or group is displayed, you can choose between a number of viewing options.

Device Tree Viewing Options

Switch Device Tree View—Classic Device Tree

Via the Switch Device Tree View buttons in the page header bar, you can adjust how much information is included next to each object. Use the buttons to switch from a very condensed view (S) to a very spacious view (L). Use XL to switch the device tree to a list view.

In the classic device tree view, you can collapse devices, groups, and probes. Click the minus box left of the object name to summarize the sensors according to their respective status. By default, sensors in a Down, Down (Partial), or Down (Acknowledged) status are summarized if there are more than ten sensors with the same status, otherwise they are displayed individually.

Collapsed Device With Summarized Ups and Unusuals and Individual Downs

Switch Device Tree View—Extended Views

There are two additional options to the simple tree views that enable you to display the status of all sensors of your entire installation in a single overview. Click one of the icons to change the view:

Sunburst View
The sunburst view displays your entire installation as a circle diagram. The groups are represented as inner circles, and all devices contained within a group are shown as 'cake slices' attached to the outside of a circle element.

The sunburst is interactive:

You can click elements to open the details view of your monitoring objects.
You can zoom in and out with the plus + and minus – buttons or your mouse wheel.
You can change the position of the sunburst on the Overview tab with drag-and-drop.

Sunburst View

Tree Map View
The tree map view displays all devices of your entire installation as tiles sorted into a square and arranged according to the groups they belong to. Each device dynamically changes color to reflect the overall status of the sensors on the device. You can also adjust the square size: either depending on a device's priority, or depending on the number of sensors on a device, or depending on both. To do this, click the Size by: Sensors and/or Priority setting in the page header bar (see the mark in the screenshot below).

Tree Map View

For both views:

Colors
A device (or group) can have different colors, depending on the states of the sensors on the device or in the group (see section Sensor States). A higher status is regarded as more important and takes precedence, that is, it is prioritized higher. For example, if a device has sensors in the states Up (green), Paused (blue), and Warning (yellow), according to device prioritization, this tile is then yellow, which indicates that at least one sensor on this device is in Warning status. If a single sensor changes to Down status, the corresponding device tile turns red. Correspondingly, the states (for both views) are shown here in order of their prioritization:

Flag Color	Object Status	Meaning
Red	Down	At least one sensor on this object shows a Down status. Hover over an object's name to view the total number of alarms regarding this object.
Bright-Red	Down (Acknowledged)	At least one sensor on this object is Down and the status has been acknowledged by a user via the Acknowledge Alarm function. All of this device's Down states must have been acknowledged. If at least one sensor has not been acknowledged, this object is displayed as Down.
Yellow	Warning	At least one sensor on this object shows a Warning status. There is no sensor in a Down or Down (Acknowledged) status regarding this object.
Orange	Unusual	At least one sensor on this object shows an Unusual status. There is no sensor in a Down, Down (Acknowledged), or Warning status regarding this object.
Green	Up	All sensors on this object show an Up status. There is no sensor in a Down, Down (Acknowledged), Warning, Paused, or Unusual status regarding this object.
Blue	Paused	All sensors on this object show a Paused status. There is no sensor in a Down, Down (Acknowledged), Warning, Unusual, or Up status regarding this object.
Grey	Unknown	All sensors on this object show an Unknown status. There is no sensor in a Down, Down (Acknowledged), Warning, Unusual, Paused, or Up status regarding this object.

Size by Sensors / Size by Priority
You can adjust the size of the different squares according to the amount of sensors that run on a device or within a group, or the sensors' priority (see section Priority and Favorites), or both. Use the check boxes in the page header bar (see below) to change the view.

Sorting Checkboxes

Add Button

Hover over to add new objects to your monitoring setup. An assistant appears and guides you through the necessary steps.

The content of the context menu varies depending on the menu item or tab.

Add Button Menu

See the following sections for more information:

Default Objects in the Device Tree

By default, PRTG creates a probe device on the local probe or hosted probe. It represents the probe system. PRTG automatically monitors the system health of the PRTG core server and each probe to discover overload that might distort monitoring results. To monitor the status of the probe system, PRTG automatically creates a few sensors:

Core Health sensor
Probe Health sensor
System Health sensor
Some further device-specific sensors for disk usage and bandwidth.

In a cluster, PRTG also creates a cluster probe device with a Cluster Health sensor that monitors the cluster's system health.

We recommend that you keep these sensors, but they are all removable.

Priority and Favorites

You can tag a device or sensor as favorite. To do so, click the flag to the right of it (see screenshot below). To untag devices, proceed in the same way.

One-Click Favorites in the Device Tree

The favorite flag for sensors is available for the L or XL viewing options.

A quick way to adjust the priority is located in the page header bar right next to the object name (see screen number 1 in that subsection). Click the stars to adjust the priority (5 is the highest priority and 1 is the lowest).

One-Click Favorite and Priority in the Page Header Bar

A blue flag indicates that the respective object is a favorite already. After you click the blue flag, the object is no longer a favorite. A gray flag indicates that it is not yet a favorite.

For more information, see section Priority and Favorites.

For more details about page contents, see the following sections:

Ajax Web Interface—Basic Procedures—Topics

Customer Service

Other Ajax Web Interface Sections