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Suggestions

Welcome to the Redgate SQL Monitor feature suggestions list. Tell us how we can improve SQL Monitor by voting on these suggestions or by submitting your own ideas.

This is the easiest way to make an impact on SQL Monitor’s roadmap. Check out the completed suggestions to see how your ideas have influenced us in the past. Please note that this list is one of multiple sources that drive our development, meaning that we will not always implement the highest-ranking suggestions.

To give your idea the greatest possible impact, please follow these guidelines:

  • Describe the goal you’re trying to accomplish, rather than a specific solution to get there
  • If you have a favoured solution, add it as a comment to your suggestion
  • Give us as much context as possible
  • Only make one suggestion per post. If you have multiple ideas, submit them in separate posts
  • Comment and vote on existing posts to develop the ideas — often the SQL Monitor team will initially stay quiet about new suggestions to see what you have to say!

If you have any questions visit the SQL Monitor forum.


207 results found

  1. Exclude specific alerts from SQL SERVER ERROR LOG ENTRY alerts

    We have certain tools (mainly infosec related) that generate a lot of entries in the SQL server error log as part of their normal operation creating a lot of alerts. The only way to identify these and thereby determine that they are 'expected' is to go into each alert individually and mark it as read. The ability to ignore certain errors based on error number, severity or message would add a lot of value to this feature.

    47 votes
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    completed  ·  7 comments  ·  Admin →
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  2. display unlicensed servers in different color

    We started with RedGate Monitoring and added all our SQL Servers. As a result we consumed too much licenses. Although there's a warning on the top of the screen for this, the unlicensed servers are reporting 'healthy' which is a little tricky (especially for non-dba it'ers) because you don't know the state.

    I like to see the unlicensed servers in a different color ( for example gray) to see a better reliable overview

    6 votes
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    completed  ·  Neil Turner responded

    Unlicensed servers are now shown as grey on the global dashboard.

  3. Add a "Check for updates" link in the About section

    Alternative for when you've clicked away the "new version available" notification

    3 votes
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    1 comment  ·  Admin →
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    completed  ·  Adam responded

    Hi,

    We have now added check for updates to the About section in version 7.1.16.

    Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll mark this as completed now, but do let us know if you feel it should be reopened.

    Thanks
    Adam
    SQL Monitor Development Team

  4. Notifications support for Microsoft Teams

    Just like Slack (Webhook) notification support, it would be great if SQL Monitor could send notifications to Microsoft Teams.

    106 votes
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  5. Add more narrow time intervals in Reports

    We are using the reports part of SQL Monitor to show them on a TV screen in a proactive way and we find this very helpful.

    Now we have a question, would it be possible to include more narrow intervals like 6 h, 2 h and 30 min in the reports?
    Because even if we lower the reports to 12 h and has auto refresh every 1 min it’s kind of hard to see and react on the spikes in the graphs.
    An example can be seen in the attached fil - Batch request/sec report, it’s hard to spot the…

    12 votes
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  6. Link executions of top 10 queries

    I had an issue with a query that runs slow every other day. For a specific slow day I could find it in the top 10 queries. I'd like to be able to easily compare the days when it was previously executed . I did manage this by opening a new tab to select the fast day - the query was hard to find as there were many other queries in the top 10 on the fast day. I'd like to be able to lock in on a specific query and monitor the server/query stats at the time/duration of previous…

    5 votes
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    completed  ·  Adam responded

    Thank you for this suggestion. A graph showing a query’s history was added to the Server Overview Top Queries table in Version 7.1.11 in November 2017. This allows you to see a query’s performance over time, view its execution count, duration, reads, and writes, and the points in time a query’s plan changed.

    We will close this suggestion, but please do raise another suggestion if you have other specific improvements you’d like to see.

    Kind regards,
    Adam
    SQL Monitor Development Team

  7. Please remove the 20 character size limitation from the Alias feature

    Given that actual server named instances can be longer than 20 characters (even if they are truncated on the display), it makes no sense to limit an alias to 20 characters. Please significantly extend this limitation.

    3 votes
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    completed  ·  1 comment  ·  Admin →
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  8. Missing database name in blocking session alert

    When I receive an alert about a blocking session, it does not tell me the database. The mail starts with e.g.

    Blocking Session ID: 93
    Number of blocked descendants: 1
    Total blocking duration for all descendants: 00:03:02
    Blocking SQL fragment: CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo]...

    In the subsequent blocks (blocked sessions) it shows the corresponding database name, but only after much of scrolling, when the block cames from a long procedure (some with > 1000 lines).

    So please add the database name to the blocking session part too.

    5 votes
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    completed  ·  Adam responded

    Thanks for the suggestion. Version 7.1.3 has now been released and improvements include adding the database name to the Blocking process alert.

    Kind regards,
    SQL Monitor Development Team

  9. Monitor a failover cluster in Azure

    I have two failover clusters in Azure using ClusterSharedVolume storage, migrated from terrestrial clusters.
    I've been using SQL Monitor to monitor all aspects of these clusters but now I've migrated to Azure, the monitor can't connect (I believe it's to do with the inability to ping the cluster load balancer in Azure).
    I'm sure, as more and more of us migrate to cloud services, that covering an Azure cluster would be most welcome.

    18 votes
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    1 comment  ·  Admin →
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    completed  ·  Adam responded

    SQL Monitor versions 7.1.6 and above support SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances and AlwaysOn Availability Groups hosted in Azure.

    https://documentation.red-gate.com/sm7/configuring-sql-monitor/adding-and-configuring-servers/adding-servers-to-monitor/adding-servers-on-a-different-network-from-your-base-monitor

    https://documentation.red-gate.com/sm7/configuring-sql-monitor/adding-and-configuring-servers/adding-servers-to-monitor/monitoring-sql-server-failover-cluster-instances-and-alwayson-availability-groups-hosted-in-azure-iaas

    There are lots of ways in which Azure clusters can be configured, so If you’d like to suggest how we could improve the feature, please drop us a line at sqlmonitorfeedback@red-gate.com

    Thanks,
    Adam

  10. Use (Group) Managed Service Account Credentials for Server Monitoring

    Allow the use of managed service accounts (MSA and gMSA) as credentials when monitoring servers.

    Given the high-level permissions required to fully monitor servers, this would provide a higher level of security to match.

    48 votes
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    completed  ·  7 comments  ·  Admin →
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  11. Stop being nagged about maintenance windows - because they don't fit our operation

    The nag about "you haven't set up any maintenance windows" is something you could allow us to turn off. Period.

    SQL Monitor's simplistic feature does not tie in with the way Rackspace performs their patching, so the feature is useless and the nag is annoying as it keeps on coming up and we keep on dismissing it.

    Please, give us a "Turn of maintenance window reminders globally" option - it can't be that hard to do...

    15 votes
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    completed  ·  Adam responded

    Hi,

    SQL Monitor 7.1.11.9625 has been released to check for updates and contains a fix for this bug (SRP-11455 fixed an issue where some informational messages were not dismissible).

    Please do let us know if you continue to see this issue. Thanks for your patience.

    Adam
    SQL Monitor Development Team

  12. be able to schedule monitoring suspend or maintenance on instance level

    We have a cluster with two instances. The databases on these instances are restored on different times during the day.
    I want to be able to schedule suspend of monitoring during these different time periods so that one instance is suspended and the other is not. Or put them in maintenance mode on the instance , not on host machine level.

    12 votes
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    1 comment  ·  Admin →
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    completed  ·  Neil Turner responded

    Thanks for this suggestion. SQL Monitor 10 now allows teams to suppress alerts, or just their notifications, over certain periods using alert suppression windows. Please see What’s New in SQL Monitor 10 for more details (https://www.red-gate.com/hub/product-learning/sql-monitor/whats-new-in-sql-monitor-10).

    We hope this meets requirements and will mark it as completed. Please raise further suggestions for any improvements you would like to see.

    Thanks,

    SQL Monitor product team

  13. be able to choose the actions during maintenance window.

    During a monthly patch round along the servers, a restart or some downtime is mandatory. I want to be able to select the actions SQL Monitor will perform with the alerts triggered within that maintenance window. Most of the time I'm aware of the required Windows reboot, so I do not need an email telling me that the SQL Server was not reachable for a short period. So I would like to tell SQL Monitor not to trigger any alert during the maintenance window. (preferably a one-time maintenance window, see other suggestion)

    22 votes
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    completed  ·  Neil Turner responded

    Thanks for this suggestion. SQL Monitor 10 now allows teams to suppress alerts, or just their notifications, over certain periods using alert suppression windows. Please see What’s New in SQL Monitor 10 for more details (https://www.red-gate.com/hub/product-learning/sql-monitor/whats-new-in-sql-monitor-10).

    We hope this meets requirements and will mark it as completed. Please raise further suggestions for any improvements you would like to see.

    Thanks,

    SQL Monitor product team

  14. Pagerduty API/WebHooks and Better Notification channel

    We are in a high secure payments network, we do not wish to open ports used for email (smtp) however we would like integration with Pagerduty.

    Please create a generic web hook interface where the payload can be fully customised or direct integration via there API.

    I would like the option to pick what communication channel is used based on the severity of the alert

    Alert Rule XXXXXX
    H M L
    Email
    Pagerduty X
    Slack X

    10 votes
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  15. 12 votes
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    completed  ·  2 comments  ·  Admin →
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  16. get a report on my server inventory

    For MSFT licensing purposes, I would like to have a report from SQL Monitor across all my registered servers that tells me enough information to work out my licensing requirements. For example, which version of SQL Server is installed, which edition, how many CPUs it is installed for, any information about the Windows licensing, whether it is on a virtual machine (and how many sockets, etc) ... you get the idea.

    Currently, the reports only allow for a very limited amount of information to be added, and they have to be in summary tiles or charts. Maybe this could be…

    33 votes
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    completed  ·  Neil Turner responded

    The SQL Server Licensing page within the ‘Estate’ section (see attached) shows licensing information for monitored servers.

  17. export selected alerts

    it would be nice if we could export selected alerts (for instance full deadlocks related information) to forward to our "partner" so they can analyse the problem.

    21 votes
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  18. deadlock

    Add the ability to customize deadlock alerts. I want to able to ignore alerts if the deadlock was on table XXXXX or produced by stored procedure YYYYYY
    or have different alert levels depending on the database and table.

    45 votes
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    completed  ·  Adam responded

    Thanks for this suggestion. We will close this now as there have been no new comments since we released the new filters.

    However, please do raise new suggestions for anything you feel hasn’t been addressed, so we are able to consider them as we continue to improve SQL Monitor.

    Thanks,
    SQL Monitor Development Team

  19. Add the calling module/process in "Blocking process" alerts

    In the Details tab of a Blocking Process alert the process name of the blocking process is included. It would be very useful if this was included in the "Blocked process" info on the processes tab. This would assist us in working out what it is that the blocked process is trying to access because the SQL fragment is often too generic to be useful.

    13 votes
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  20. Email reports monthly

    I just upgraded to SQL Monitor V7 and it's great being able to have custom metrics in reports. We have a metric that records how many customers are notified in a monthly process (runs overnight on the 1st of the month). We need a way to send out this report via email on the 1st of every month (current options are only to send it weekly)

    10 votes
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    completed  ·  Adam responded

    The ability to email reports on a monthly schedule has now been released.

    Please make a new suggestion if there are any areas of the reporting you think could be improved.

    Kind regards,
    SQL Monitor Development Team

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