One thing that one of our clients has been asking for is a report similar to the one he receives when he takes his wife’s car to the dealership. This report would be a 150-point check that uses a simple red, yellow, and green light methodology to quickly communicate the status of their IT systems.

I would love to see this as an extension of an app that runs in the system tray. When clicked, it would open a small window displaying a few major KPIs using the red, yellow, and green indicators for quick reference. For example, one KPI could be backups:

• If the indicator is green, all backups have completed successfully, and we are meeting our Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) expectations.
• If it is yellow, not all backups completed successfully, but we are still meeting our RTO and RPO requirements. This would indicate a potential issue that I can address without the client’s intervention.
• If it is red, backups have been missed or did not complete, and we have failed to meet our RTO or RPO targets.

I would love to integrate the ability to publish reports to the app, allowing users to receive notifications about new reports that they can download or view. Additionally, I could send broadcast messages via the app.

The app would also be user- and computer-aware, meaning it will display the status of the current computer as well as the logged-in user. If the user is a manager, I could configure the app to reflect the status of the entire company. I believe this aligns with the concept of a customer user experience app.