To run the All References add-in, right-click a management pack item, and then click Show References. For example, if you wanted to find all management pack items that target your class, you browse to the Class view, right-click the class, and click the Show References command. Note that Show References also appears in the Actions pane in the Extensibility section.

The functionality to search for management pack items that refer to the open management pack only searches through management packs that are present in the Authoring console's reference folder paths. On startup, the All References add-in builds or updates its cache with information about the management packs stored in those locations. When a search is performed, All References uses the cache to narrow down the number of management packs that have to be opened and searched.

The following table lists the items All References identifies for a particular management pack item type that is selected in the Authoring console.

Note

The All References Add-in does not display the strings and knowledge articles associated with any of the management pack items. To view all the display strings and knowledge for a management pack, in the Authoring console, click Language Packs, expand the language code, and click Display Strings or Knowledge Articles. In the results, you can sort by the Name column and see all the strings for a given management pack item.

When you select one or more management pack elements supported by All References, you can search for their references using one of the following methods:

• Action Pane
  
  With one or more supported management pack elements selected, click Show References in the Action pane.
  
  
• Context Menu
  
  Similarly, with one or more supported management pack elements selected, right-click, and then click Show References in the shortcut menu.
  
  

You can select multiple items in the Authoring console before clicking Show References. When you select multiple items, one result window will be shown for each selected management pack item.

When the search completes, All References displays the results in a separate window. In the results window, you can perform one of the following actions:

• Show/Hide Group Descriptions
  
  Pressing F2 in the results windows toggles the display of group descriptions. The same operation can also be accomplished by right-clicking in the results window and clicking Show Group Descriptions.
  
  
• Show Empty Groups
  
  Pressing F3 or clicking Show Empty Groups in the shortcut menu will hide any management pack item type that contains no references to the item you selected in the console.
  
  
• Copy Information to the System Clipboard
  
  To copy the search results to the Clipboard, select one or more results and press CRTL+C. This will copy the element name, management pack name, management pack version, and management pack key token to the clipboard for every selected item.
  
  When you right-click one or more items in the results window, the shortcut menu offers the following options to provide you with more control over the information to be copied:
  
  
  • Copy copies the element name, management pack name, management pack version, and management pack key token of every selected item to the clipboard.
    
    
  • Copy Element Name copies the element name of every selected item to the clipboard.
    
    
  • Copy Management Pack Name copies the management pack name of every selected item to the clipboard.
    
    
  • Copy Management Pack Version copies the management pack version of every selected item to the clipboard.
    
    
  • Copy Management Pack Key Token copies the management pack key token of every selected item to the clipboard.
    
    
• Search for References to References
  
  To find references to one of the management pack elements displayed in the results window, either double-click the item of interest or right-click the item and click Show References.
  
  If Show References is grayed out, the add-in does not support finding references of the selected management element type. If you double-click an unsupported management pack element type, the following error message will be displayed:
  
  “AllReferences Add-in does not support searching for references to some of the selected items. Search results for the supported selected item types have been displayed. Currently unsupported are: reports, image references, console tasks, views, overrides, recoveries, diagnostics, and agent tasks.”
  
  

If you update References with folders with management packs but the add-in still does not find any references, the cache may be out of date. The cache is automatically updated when the Authoring console opens, but not when you add a new reference folder. When you add a new folder to your references, if you do not want to close and open the Authoring console again, you can click Update Reference Cache in the shortcut menu.

If you have many folders and management packs, updating the cache may take a while. If you attempt to search for references while the cache is being updated, you’ll see a message that the All References add-in is scanning management packs. In the message, you can click Search Open MP to search only for references in the open management pack, or you can click Cancel to cancel the search while scanning continues. If you do nothing, All References will complete the scan and then perform the search.

References to Health Roll-up Monitors

In this release, the All References add-in does not support finding references to Health roll-up monitors—aggregate monitors and dependency monitors. Currently in the Authoring console, you can only see aggregate and dependency monitors rolling up to monitors found in your MP or up to its parent health roll-up monitors. For example, when you open the Microsoft.SQLServer.Library.mp and go to the Monitors view, you can see the System.Health.EntityHealth and the 4 standard out-of-the-box aggregate monitors. Currently, you cannot search for all monitors in all MPs found in your references folder that rolls up to the monitor you select. All References supports showing roll-up monitors found with the same MP, but it may cause some confusion because the Authoring console will only show roll-up monitors targeted to that class. An inherited class or class with a dependency monitor will roll up health to that target, yet the Authoring console will not show that monitor under the current class.

Image References for classes only

Because Operations Manager only displays images that are associated with classes through image references, the add-in shows image references for classes only. Although the schema allows you to associate images with any management pack item, the Authoring console does not support this and Operations console will only display images associated with classes.