Best Practice: Management Pack Elements should have display descriptions

 

What does this best practice check for?

There are certain management pack elements for which it is considered high-priority for them to have associated descriptions. As a best practice, it is high-priority for certain MP elements to have descriptions.

The elements for which it is high-priority to have descriptions for are:

·          Management Pack

·          Discoveries

·          Monitors

·          Tasks

·          Modules

Why is it important to follow this best practice? What is the impact of not following this best practice?

The description gives the end-user insight into the functionality of the particular element without having them go into the product knowledge to determine this. If descriptions are not defined for elements in the management pack, the end-user must either deduce this from the element display name, which is typically not descriptive enough, or resort to having to read the product knowledge to have to determine functionality. This increases customer dissatisfaction.  

How do I fix this in my MP?

Using the Authoring Console:

1.        In the Authoring console, all elements have a description field. Ensure that this field is filled in.

Using XML:

       < DisplayString ElementID = " Report.Windows.Server.2008.PerformanceHistoryMemory.PageWritesPerSec" >

         < Name > Memory Performance History (Page Writes per Sec) </ Name >

          < Description > Performance History Memory - Page Writes Per Sec Analysis Report </ Description >

       </ DisplayString >