Sentinel Release 4.6.2

P2 Sentinel 4.6 introduces compatibility with P2 Explorer 4.6 and later.  

This release incorporates Explorer's security framework into the core Sentinel product, allowing better integration between the two applications. It also moves the Case Management web interface into Explorer, which allows for easier management of cases via an improved web experience.

P2 Sentinel version 4.6.2 is a patch release, which adds further options for handling suppressed events, and begins to move Sentinel's documentation into the Explorer Help Center.


Compatibility with P2 Explorer

P2 Sentinel is now compatible with P2 Explorer 4.6.5.


BadDataSuppressionBehavior Setting

This new configuration option allows a way to control whether Bad Data Suppressions are raised or not. Options are: Suppress or None. This is useful in conjunction with the NullDatumBehavior option as a way to ignore Null data points.


Hide Suppressed Events Option

There is a new ‘Hide Suppressed’ option in the Event Viewer. This option can help reduce the total amount of events loaded and can, in some instances, lower the time to load the events.


Changes to Help Documentation

Help links in the software now point to the Sentinel section of the Explorer Help Center, from which documentation can now be accessed.

https://e4helpcenter.petroleumplace.com/help/sentinel

The P2 Sentinel Studio User’s Guide has been transitioned to online documentation only.


400 Character Limit removed from Case Title and Description

It is now possible to use more than 400 characters for Case Titles and Descriptions.


Security

In P2 Sentinel versions 4.1.5 and earlier, security privileges were defined in the SentinelConfig.xml file, with default roles allocated to them. Roles and users were managed from within the compatible version of P2 Security (P2 Security versions 4.1.9 and earlier).

In Sentinel 4.6, security privileges are defined in P2 Explorer’s Security module.

Read more: Security

In Explorer’s Security user interface, you can create and manage roles, allocate privileges to them, and then associate roles with users, thereby controlling what users can do in Sentinel.

This method of managing Security is more accessible (a user with the Security Admin privilege can maintain this at any time), as well as more flexible, with the ability to associate various combinations of privilege with the different roles.

Sentinel’s Privileges in Security

Sentinel’s privileges in Security are allocated at two levels: the Module privilege, Sentinel Admin, which cascades into all the Sentinel privileges (giving full access to Sentinel), and the Sentinel Resource privileges, which limit roles to specific areas of functionality within Sentinel.

To configure Sentinel’s security (roles and which privileges are assigned to these, and users), you require a role that has the Security Admin privilege. Details for configuring roles, users, and for allocating privileges within Security are located in separate online help topics in the Security menu of the P2 Explorer Help Center: https://e4helpcenter.petroleumplace.com/help/p2-server/.

The Security Admin role, required for administering security functions:

Module privileges in Security; here the Sentinel Admin privilege has been allocated to a role:

Resource privileges for Sentinel; the Sentinel Admin privilege cascades to all Sentinel privileges, for a role:

Resource privileges for a role that doesn’t have the Sentinel Admin privilege; here, different combinations of privileges can be set:

For administering security for Sentinel users, see details in the Sentinel Installation and Administration Guide.

Privileges Assigned in the Sentinel Application

Some privileges can still be allocated at the workspace level: ‘Security Roles’ and ‘Approvers’.

For example, if you want a role to have Workspaces View privileges or Workspaces Approver privileges for some of the workspaces only, you can switch this privilege off at the Resource privilege level for that role, and apply the privileges within individual workspaces. Details can be found in the Managing Workspaces section, in the P2 Sentinel User’s Guide.


Case Management

Cases are still raised from within P2 Sentinel (if Case Management is enabled in the Sentinel configuration file), but they are now viewed and edited from P2 Explorer, instead of the P2 Case Viewer.

This change builds on the existing relationship between P2 Sentinel and P2 Explorer, and Cases now benefit from the many features of the P2 Explorer framework.

Read more: Case Management

New Case Options

There are two additional case options: Case Title and Case Description. As with the other case options, a default is available and configurable in the Sentinel Configuration file. Both of these fields can be edited for a particular Test, if required, and both of them can include tokens.

Case URLs

The URL command for opening a case in P2 Explorer is:

https://[server name]/ P2.Explorer/cases/[CaseId] where [server name] is the name of the Explorer Server and [CaseId] is the case’s ID.

This is a change from the previous URL, which was:

  • https://<servername>/Sentinel/CaseViewer.aspx?OpenCaseId=[case id] or
  • https://<servername>/Sentinel/CaseViewer.aspx?OpenCaseId=[case id]

Changes to Viewing and Editing Cases

The Case Viewer module, available in earlier versions of P2 Sentinel, has been removed from the Sentinel application.

Sentinel-raised Cases can now be viewed and edited in P2 Explorer. Details of how to view cases in Explorer are available in the P2 Explorer 4.6.1 Release Notes.

Changes to Managing Prioritisation and Case Aggregation

Prioritisation of cases is no longer a Sentinel function. The ‘AutoCaseCalculations’ spreadsheet is maintained on P2 Explorer’s server, and P2 Explorer’s Server service uses this spreadsheet in its regular configured run (for example, daily), to update priorities of all cases in Explorer, including the Sentinel cases. The P2 Explorer Installation Guide has instructions for creating and maintaining the spreadsheet, so that it will auto-prioritise cases based on a matrix of rules defined for each category.

Note: The lowest priority (and also the Sentinel default priority) for a case is now 10, where previously it was 100.

Case Aggregation, a method of limiting Sentinel cases to a single open case per category, is no longer controlled from within the ‘AutoCaseCalculations’ spreadsheet. The Category table in the Sentinel database is used to set case aggregations by Category. Refer to the P2 Sentinel Installation and Administration Guide for details.

Case Reports

Case Reports, in earlier versions of P2 Sentinel, showed case statistics for all monitors within a workspace. This report is no longer available in Sentinel, and will be available in P2 Explorer, in a future release.

Changes to Source Monitor Items, for the Tag and Entity Types

In P2 Explorer, cases can be filtered by entity. In Sentinel, you need to specify the entity for a Tag source type, so that any related cases can be associated with the correct entity in Explorer. Note that in Sentinel, the entity is referred to as an asset.

As part of this change, the Asset column was removed for Entity source types, as this was redundant (asset is the same as entity).

 

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