[CLOSED] Share your favorite articles or new ideas for Meraki Documentation and win swag!

CameronMoody
Meraki Employee

UPDATE: This contest has ended. A huge thanks to everyone who submitted their thoughts on documentation, we're excited to go through all of your feedback! Our two randomly selected winners are: @BAllen & @andrewperry, congratulations! 

 

Hi Community!

 

I'm Cameron, Knowledge Manager here at Meraki and I manage our documentation site.

 

IMG_5929.jpeg

 

The Meraki documentation site (documentation.meraki.com) includes hundreds of articles ranging from basic administration guides to deep dive troubleshooting tips for networking issues.

 

For this month’s challenge, I want to know your thoughts on one of these two questions: 

 

  1. If you had to pick the top 3 must-read articles on documentation.meraki.com, which would you select?
  2. What new content would you love to see added to our documentation?

How to enter

In a comment on this post, either list your top 3 documentation articles or provide your opinion about what new documentation content you’d like to see (or both) and be entered to win swag! Submit your thoughts in a comment on this blog post before 11 a.m. PST on Monday, February 17th (2/17/2020). We’ll then draw two at random to win an induction speaker! Your entries will be public and visible throughout the contest.

 

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The fine print:

62 Comments
Jwiley78
Building a reputation

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/NAT_and_Port_Forwarding/Port_Forwarding_and_NAT_Rules_on_the_MX

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Site-to-site_VPN/Site-to-site_VPN_Settings

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Client_VPN/Client_VPN_OS_Configuration

 

Recently starting employment with a MSP that has multiple clients using Meraki the top three articles I seem to keep for reference are above.
Site to Site VPN. 

Client VPN OS configuration

Port forwarding and NAT Rules

 

Can almost fix all of my problems reading documentation.  If not, support is usually pretty quick to resolve problems.

 

 

NJacobe
Getting noticed
BAllen
Here to help

https://documentation.meraki.com/MG/MG21%2F%2F21E_Datasheet

Any hardware datasheet documentation: 3D model of hardware appliance would be really cool!

 

https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Tools_and_Troubleshooting

I long for the day I can have a cloud accessible shell on my Meraki devices....

 

https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Inventory_and_Devices/Search_Tool

Advanced searching is REALLY good in a big organization

 

I'd love to see the API documented in a way were it could be used as a CLI for Meraki.

LegoGeek
Getting noticed

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Client_VPN/Client_VPN_OS_Configuration

https://documentation.meraki.com/SM/Device_Enrollment/Systems_Manager_Installation_using_Active_Dire...

https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Cross-Platform_Content/Blocking_and_Whiteli...

 

I'd like to see if Meraki could create an external RADIUS service for devices you want to "manage" but not be anywhere near your internal production equipment.  That way I'd not have to utilize my third goto link listed.

gdavison50
Conversationalist

I'm a fan of most of the deployment guides, particularly for the MX and MS devices, as well as the Site-to-site VPN settings and BGP VPN Design Guide.  All have been very useful.

 

I would like to see more in depth coverage of the new MG21 series including references to other devices you need to update (MX).  Sometimes documents assume that the reader knows a related topic that is needed to make a solution work.  Although Meraki support is always available to fill-in the missing information!

MNorris
Comes here often

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Client_VPN/Client_VPN_OS_Configuration

https://documentation.meraki.com/MS/Stacking/Switch_Stacks

 

These have all been useful while making our switch to Meraki gear. I came into my position with some networking experience but never as involved as I have been now. It has been great to have the documentation to get me started.

 

These have all been useful while making our switch to Meraki gear. I came into my position with some networking experience but never as involved as I have been now. It has been great to have the documentation to get me started.

ChrisGerman
Comes here often
https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Monitoring_and_Reporting/Syslog_Server_Over... Thank you for doing this because I LOVE watching live logs on my MX/MR and be able to search through them quickly with patterns, etc. I would like to see this page get updated with more information as it doesn't have enough or missing. The Syslog config only has HOST but if you have tons of devices in the same IP range. It's best to use NETMASK instead of HOST which you don't have documented. https://documentation.meraki.com/Architectures_and_Best_Practices/Cisco_Meraki_Best_Practice_Design/... When setting up the MX, I was reading this a lot and the sublinks to ensure the switch over from a Cisco ASA to MX. https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Content_Filtering_and_Threat_Protection/Content_Filtering It's simple and easy to understand but I do use this feature a lot but unsure you guys support regular expressions (REGEX) which would help to stop patterns.
jonesr1
Conversationalist

 

https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Tools_and_Troubleshooting/Using_the_Cisco_M...
This link I can send to local site support in the event they need to make a change to a static IP or change to DHCP

 

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Other_Topics/MX_Cold_Swap_Replacing_an_Existing_MX_with_a_Differ...
Same for this when walking someone through equipment swap

 

And this one, because it's fun 🙂

https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Other_Topics/Using_Chrome_Devtools_with_Wir...

Johnfnadez
Building a reputation

Hi!

 

I really love how friendly would it be the Meraki Documentation. 

For instance the documentation about the IPSec between Non-Meraki and Meraki it´s very great, bc I didn´t new how to do it at all, because usually we are used with ASAS to establish IPSec tunnels but In Meraki I neither thought if it woud it be possible and I found it, Its possible!

 

♥ Meraki!

 

 

JHoffman
Comes here often
https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Installation_Guides/MX67%2F%2FMX68_Installation_Guide Need this to get the MX up and running https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Firewall_and_Traffic_Shaping/MX_Firewall_Settings So stuff can communicate https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Site-to-site_VPN/Site-to-site_VPN_Settings So your sites can communicate I'd like to see more documentation on Group Policies. I found that they are parsed top down, not cumulative so if a policy at the top can override the bottom it will. Wasn't documented anywhere.
CameronMoody
Meraki Employee

@NJacobe 

more documentation about merging networks and organizations

That's a good call-out, I'll add that to our backlog.

 

We do have documentation on what we refer to as "combining" networks (https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Organizations_and_Networks/Combined_Dashboa...)
But I assume you're referring to the general concept of "how do I best go about taking 2 things and making them 1 on a network level and org level", is that correct? I would agree that's an area we could improve.

 

more about MI and their new VoIP features

https://documentation.meraki.com/MI/MI_VoIP_Health

We just published a new document on MI VoIP Health. Hopefully that's helpful?

CameronMoody
Meraki Employee

@BAllen 

 

3D model of hardware appliance would be really cool!

Interesting idea. That might be feasible but would take a little work. Could you think of a good use case for it?

 

I'd love to see the API documented in a way were it could be used as a CLI for Meraki.

Do you think the limitation right now is that the documentation is not clear/simple enough to make that easy to do (which is possible for us to fix), or do you feel it's more a limitation of what the API is capable of right now (which is more a matter of time)?

CameronMoody
Meraki Employee

@LegoGeek 

 

I'd like to see if Meraki could create an external RADIUS service for devices you want to "manage" but not be anywhere near your internal production equipment.

 

Is Meraki Authentication what you're looking for, or not quite the same thing?

https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Cross-Platform_Content/Managing_User_Accoun...

hockeydude
Getting noticed
Gotta be honest, haven't used Docs page all that much. Maybe initially for l3 switching years back? Band 14 availability in your cellular offerings. For now we'll stick with Cradlepoint to provide LTE failover. ACL rules page needs to be revamped. Completely. It's horrible. MX firewall rules is better, but I'd like to see the addition of a services and/or network dialogue. One of those kill buttons used by Fisher Stevens aka "The Plague" in Hackers.
LegoGeek
Getting noticed

@CameronMoody 

We are experimenting with this but it doesn't simply what we are trying to accomplish.  Without involving an SM client install we are wanting to choose where and where not certain clients have access to... in essence, they register their MAC address's and devices and we then "tell them" what they have access to.  The best description is a "glorified guest wifi" with ubber control of who can use it... Including wifi-enabled smart devices (TV's, DVD players, etc.). The Meraki "user" is a nice idea but doesn't have the control, ease, and insight we are looking for.

Robha
Comes here often

I would like to see Meraki cloud and Meraki MX security & SD-WAN in one device. Also this device contains different platform interface for each, this will be as you have multi-function service in one device.

CharlieCrackle
Building a reputation

My biggest issue with documentation is it is wrong and not up to date.  When new features are brought out part of the introduction process should be to update the documentation.   Especially true with insight documentation.  Features are removed and added but the documentation does not reflect this.

 

Other common issue is the screens shots in the documentation are of the OLD UI and not the updated UI.  (SM documentation suffers from this a lot)

 

 

I use this one a lot to send to clients

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Client_VPN/Client_VPN_OS_Configuration

but it is written too technical for end users and misses step that tech people know but end users do not

Need a End user version of this

 

This one I use as well

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Content_Filtering_and_Threat_Protection/Configuring_Active_Direc...

 

 

More documentation on using DEP with SM  the current documentation  does not explain well the apple part of the setup  (old screens shots)

 

 

 

Madrid1164
Just browsing

 

Very helpful and "hot" topic for me or anything related to automation via APIs.

 

The Meraki Dashboard API

https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Other_Topics/The_Cisco_Meraki_Dashboard_API

 

I would like to find Meraki Dashboard integration with the customer internal ticketing/incident system so a meaningful event at the dashboard will trigger an API call which will create an internal ticket to be routed to the appropriate IT group for review/resolution.

 

This one is helpful but needs to be expanded.

https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Other_Topics/Webhooks

 

Another great document/resource.

https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Other_Topics/Meraki_XML_API

 

CameronMoody
Meraki Employee

@JHoffman 

 

I'd like to see more documentation on Group Policies. I found that they are parsed top down, not cumulative so if a policy at the top can override the bottom it will. Wasn't documented anywhere.

 

There's more information on order of priority for group policies in the Troubleshooting Group Policies doc. If that wasn't clear from the main Group Policy doc, it should probably be more obvious/easier to discover, so I'll look into that.

Hopefully that's helpful?

https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Tools_and_Troubleshooting/Troubleshooting_G...

RussR
Here to help


1. If you had to pick the top 3 must-read articles on documentation.meraki.com, which would you select?
Upstream Firewall Rules for Cloud Connectivity:
https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Other_Topics/Upstream_Firewall_Rules_for_Cl...


MR Wireless Regulatory Domains:
https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Radio_Settings/MR_Wireless_Regulatory_Domains

 

Air Marshal
https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Monitoring_and_Reporting/Air_Marshal


2. What new content would you love to see added to our documentation?

Keeping the Dashboard documentation up to date with the releases/changes in hardware

 

CameronMoody
Meraki Employee

@CharlieCrackle 

 

My biggest issue with documentation is it is wrong and not up to date.  When new features are brought out part of the introduction process should be to update the documentation.   Especially true with insight documentation.  Features are removed and added but the documentation does not reflect this.

Our policy is for public documentation to be a release requirement for public beta for any new features or hardware. I'll be the first to admit that things have been missed before, but we're working hard at keeping that tight. Of any of the products though, I'm a bit surprised Insight is the pain point.

 

Insight VoIP Health, as the most recent example, was documented before release. (https://documentation.meraki.com/MI/MI_VoIP_Health)

Web App Health underwent a UI overhaul, and I believe the documentation reflected the changes within a couple days. Insight should be fairly complete right now, but maybe there was a more painful spot a couple months ago?

 

Honestly, if there's anything you feel is missing though, let me know and I'll work that into our agenda.

 

 

Other common issue is the screens shots in the documentation are of the OLD UI and not the updated UI.  (SM documentation suffers from this a lot)

Yeah, you're not wrong. There are ~1800 articles, so we do have many outdated screenshots. We perform about 10-30 edits per day, and our documentation is living as much as our UI is, so we're always working to keep up. We do try to prioritize screenshot-updates in articles where the actual workflow has changed, rather than just the appearance, though we'd obviously prefer to update all of them. I understand the pain of it though, and we're working on it.

 

I use this one a lot to send to clients
https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Client_VPN/Client_VPN_OS_Configuration
but it is written too technical for end users and misses step that tech people know but end users do not
Need a End user version of this

That's an interesting idea. Could you possibly give an example of what information is missing for technical users, and what information would be extraneous for end users?

 

 

More documentation on using DEP with SM  the current documentation  does not explain well the apple part of the setup  (old screens shots)

We're in-progress with some major updates to our DEP documentation. Keep an eye on our documentation digests, should be coming in a little while.

CameronMoody
Meraki Employee

@ChrisGerman 

 

I would like to see this page get updated with more information as it doesn't have enough or missing. The Syslog config only has HOST but if you have tons of devices in the same IP range. It's best to use NETMASK instead of HOST which you don't have documented.

Noted, we'll try to get that fixed soon. Thanks

Travis_McKinney
Conversationalist
https://documentation.meraki.com/Go https://documentation.meraki.com/MI https://documentation.meraki.com/SM Hello, I would like to see more about the new Meraki (MG Cellular Gateway) in the documentation section seems like a neat and powerful product for weak areasof cellular service!
Robha
Comes here often

I want to see a sorted logging data that can be traced in the easiest way.

NJacobe
Getting noticed

@CameronMoody 

thats correct. More merging the networks and organizations. 

 

I saw the MI VoIP info but we can always use more as well as some best practices. 

CameronMoody
Meraki Employee

@LegoGeek 

 

 Without involving an SM client install we are wanting to choose where and where not certain clients have access to... in essence, they register their MAC address's and devices and we then "tell them" what they have access to

 

This might, again, not be exactly what you're looking for, but have you seen our new Trusted Access feature? Your use case sounds really similar.

 

https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Cross-Platform_Content/Trusted_Access_for_S...

 

Meraki Trusted Access is an easy, secure way to connect iOS, iPadOS, and macOS devices to Meraki MR wireless networks without enrolling the device into Systems Manager. It provides simple, secure certificate-based EAP-TLS authentication, eliminating the need to setup a certificate authority (CA) or RADIUS server.
Once you have defined which users can have access to your network, they will be able to download the configuration profile needed to join the SSID from a self-service portal using the authentication method you’ve defined for the network.

It's an SM/MR feature but it doesn't require the devices to enroll, and it allows you to have secure client connectivity without RADIUS, you manage them as normal dashboard clients. And you can apply it on an SSID-level, which allows you to separate access to your network resources with standard segmentation.

 

I think it's pretty sleek. Might be helpful?

CameronMoody
Meraki Employee

@RussR 

Keeping the Dashboard documentation up to date with the releases/changes in hardware

 

What would you say was the most recent/egregious example of us falling short at that?

Agus
Getting noticed
For the beginner like me (in company using wireless product) For meraki documentation i pick this one for first time manage the device https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration and second one is https://documentation.meraki.com/MR ideas, should be including documentation with short video so for beginner can fast learning how to understanding the meraki product
andrewperry
Here to help

Hi there,

here my top 3 documentation articles:

 

  1. https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Client_VPN/Client_VPN_OS_Configuration#Windows_10
  2. https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Firmware_Upgrades/Managing_Firmware_Upgrade...
  3. https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/NAT_and_Port_Forwarding/Port_Forwarding_and_NAT_Rules_on_the_MX

 

I would love to see an article about a new version of client VPN solution without changing parameters problems (maybe a Cisco vpn tool?).

Thank you

Anjul_Sharma
Conversationalist

Hello Cameron,

 

Thanks again to give us opportunity to jump on all the Documents view for Meraki Swag 🙂

 

I really appreciate to Meraki team for there efforts to give us a easy to learn platform here, with the regular reading and learning, i found below Three Docs is more useful for me with the SD-WAN new technology and cover the same with Meraki.

 

https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Group_Policies_and_Blacklisting

 

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Site-to-site_VPN/BGP_VPN_Design_Guide

 

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Firewall_and_Traffic_Shaping/SD-WAN_and_Traffic_Shaping

 

 

Thank-You

Anjul Sharma

L0nzY
Comes here often

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Site-to-site_VPN/Site-to-site_VPN_Settings

Useful to understand how it works and differs from traditional configuration

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Client_VPN/Client_VPN_OS_Configuration

Good read and helpful for easy, straight forward deployments

https://documentation.meraki.com/SM/Deployment_Guides/Android_Enterprise_Deployment_Guide

MDM is really powerful and has been fun to play around with.

 

I would like to see possibility of more security features that may be coming.

 

Thank you.

Trisha
Here to help

I love all the basic step by step articles on setup, and managing all of our gear, even though we have a bigger tech firm over me, I do a lot of the smaller stuff (open ports and things), it also means a lot to me to understand the changes that tech firm might make and why.  I suppose I like learning and I am curious so it interest me. 

ChristopherB
Just browsing

I would like to see more information on the MV32 360 cameras. We recently had an incident where we needed to export a video clip on a MV32 and we could not do it in DPTZ mode or in fish eye mode. we looked everywhere on this site and found limited info on this. Tech support is quick and helpful.

LegoGeek
Getting noticed

@CameronMoody 

 

https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Cross-Platform_Content/Trusted_Access_for_S...

 

Meraki Trusted Access is an easy, secure way to connect iOS, iPadOS, and macOS devices to Meraki MR wireless networks without enrolling the device into Systems Manager. It provides simple, secure certificate-based EAP-TLS authentication, eliminating the need to setup a certificate authority (CA) or RADIUS server.
Once you have defined which users can have access to your network, they will be able to download the configuration profile needed to join the SSID from a self-service portal using the authentication method you’ve defined for the network.

 

I've talked with the guys developing Meraki Trusted Access.  While very intriguing it still is very limited in devices that can join at the moment. Last conversation was limited to Apple devices?  I need it to cover like an Apartment type situation where residents "in that housing" can connect what they need (again, Smart TV's, MS Laptops, DVD player, game consoles, etc...) while excluding those who don't live in "that housing area". Again these are personal devices gaining access to areas designated for them while excluding them and others from other areas (dictated by policy and procedure).

Abarreto
Conversationalist
damienleick
Getting noticed
MarioSalverredy
Comes here often
TomR
Comes here often
MMoss
Building a reputation
KJKUESTER
Conversationalist
tdj7397
Here to help

1. a https://documentation.meraki.com/Getting_Started

    b https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Monitoring_and_Reporting/Monitoring_the_Wireless_Network

    c https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Inventory_and_Devices/Adding_and_Removing_D...

 

2. Would like to see more documentation on licensing and the restrictions of test/eval licenses vs production licenses. A lot of time could have been saved had we known you can't really test much with eval/trial licenses.

Julien_T
New here
Anonymous
Not applicable
MeredithW
Meraki Alumni (Retired)

UPDATE: due to today's U.S. national holiday, we will be extending this challenge until 11am PST tomorrow!

vassallon
Kind of a big deal

@CameronMoody 

 

I would think if you reference another document it "should" be linked within the document.

 

https://documentation.meraki.com/SM/Profiles_and_Settings/Configuration_Profiles

MeredithW
Meraki Alumni (Retired)

UPDATE: This contest has ended. A huge thanks to everyone who submitted their thoughts on documentation, we're excited to go through all of your feedback! Our two randomly selected winners are: @BAllen & @andrewperry, congratulations!