Welcome to NITS

This guide walks new users through everything you need to find your way around NITS — signing in, searching for records, understanding sites/nodes/circuits and how they relate, and the day-to-day workflows (creating records, migrating circuits, patching cables, tracing a service end-to-end). Skim it once, then come back to any section whenever you need a refresher — use the filter box above to jump straight to a term.

📘 What is NITS?

NITS (Network Inventory Transformation System) is enet's system of record for physical and logical network inventory — sites, the equipment installed in them, the ports and circuits that connect it all, and the customers and orders those circuits serve. It replaces the legacy Oracle-based IMS system with the same underlying data, presented through a faster, modern web interface.

If you're coming from the old IMS screens, the underlying records are the same — sites, nodes, circuits, DDF/ODF frames — but everything is now reached through one search bar and one consistent record layout (the Explorer), instead of separate legacy forms.

🔑 Signing in

Most users sign in with their normal enet Microsoft account. A small number of break-glass accounts sign in with a username and password instead.

NITS sign-in screen with 'Sign in with Microsoft' and a local-account fallback — The sign-in screen at /login

Go to /login and choose Sign in with Microsoft. You'll be redirected through your organization's normal Microsoft sign-in.
The first time you sign in, NITS won't yet know what you're allowed to do. You'll land on a "Waiting for access" screen. NITS automatically tries to find your manager and email them an approval request — if it can't, you'll be asked to enter your manager's email yourself.
Once your manager approves (or a NITS admin grants you a role directly), that waiting screen moves on to the Explorer by itself — no need to log out and back in.

Tip The "Waiting for access" page checks automatically every 15 seconds, and has a Check again button if you don't want to wait. If your request was denied, that page will tell you and point you to a NITS admin.

Break-glass accounts A small number of local username/password accounts exist for emergency access if Microsoft sign-in is unavailable. These always have full admin rights. If you don't know whether you have one, you almost certainly sign in with Microsoft instead.

🛡️ Roles & permissions

Every account has exactly one role, assigned by a NITS admin. The role controls what you can see and change.

Role	Can do
read	Search and view every record — sites, nodes, circuits, history, etc. Cannot create, edit, or run migration actions.
write	Everything `read` can do, plus create/edit records, assign ports, run circuit-migration actions, and use the cable/patch tools.
admin	Everything `write` can do, plus the admin-only pages: user role assignment, feature-flag rollout, service-account/API-key management, the Topology Map, and the API tester.

Until an admin assigns you a role, your account is in pending access and can't reach the Explorer at all — see Signing in.

🧭 The Explorer, at a glance

The Explorer (/explorer) is the one screen you'll spend almost all your time in. Everything else — the Topology Map, Trace Map, admin pages — opens from links in its top bar.

Top bar

🌓 Toggle light/dark theme — your choice is remembered for next time.
🔠 Toggle comfortable text size for a larger, zoomed-in layout.
⊞ Topology Map — admins only, opens in a new tab.
⟁ Trace Map — opens the circuit you're currently viewing in a standalone trace view.
👤 / 🔑 admin shortcuts to user and API-key management (visible to admins only).

Search bar

Choose a record type (Circuit, Node, Site, Rack, Customer, Order, DdfOdf, Domain, OLO Circuit) and search by Name or by ID.
An Instance vs Definition switch lets you search live records, or look up equipment type definitions (e.g. ALU 7750-SR12) instead.
The panel below the search bar shows the matched record's full detail — tabs, tables, and a breadcrumb trail back through anything you drilled into.

Note Every record type shares the same shape: a header with the record's key identifiers, a set of tabs for its related data (ports, cards, circuits, etc.), and a History tab for its audit trail — see History & audit trail.

🔍 Searching & the picker

Type a name or ID and press Enter. If more than one record matches, NITS shows a picker — a grid of candidates — so you can choose the exact one you meant.

Watch for When picking a Site, the grid's "name" column shows the shared city-level name (e.g. DUB) — many sites in the same city share it. The column you actually want to confirm you have the right site is the unique site/location code (e.g. IEDUB2219), shown alongside it. Don't rely on the name alone to tell two Dublin sites apart.

The same picker pattern appears anywhere a search could return more than one match — Sites, Nodes, Circuits, OLO Circuits, and DDF/ODF frames all use it.

🏢 Sites

A Site is a physical location — an exchange, data centre, or customer premise — identified by its unique location code (e.g. IEDUB2219) as well as a shared city-level name (e.g. DUB).

Site detail view showing the location tree, its circuits, and details panel — A Site's detail view: the tree on the left, its circuits in the middle, full details on the right

A Site's detail view lists the racks and nodes installed there. Drill into any of them to move down into the equipment hierarchy — see Nodes & equipment.

🖧 Nodes & equipment

A Node is a piece of network equipment (a switch, router, or transmission platform) installed at a Site. Everything physically inside that equipment follows one consistent hierarchy:

Node→ Shelf→ Slot→ Card→ Sub-slot (SFP)→ Port

Shelf / Slot / Card mirror the equipment's physical chassis — the shelves, slot positions, and cards racked into them.
Sub-slots are pluggable transceiver bays nested inside a card — this is where SFP/SFP+ modules live. A card can host several sub-slots, and each sub-slot behaves like a small card in its own right (its own metadata, its own ports).
Ports are the lowest level — the actual connection points. A port's name is built by walking the whole parent-card chain, e.g. 9/2/5 for a port on a card nested a couple of levels deep, so the same naming convention holds however deep the sub-slot nesting goes.

Tip If a card/port shows blank metadata or a "forbidden" message where you'd expect details, it usually means you're looking at an SFP sub-slot nested inside another card — try opening the parent card first, then drilling into the sub-slot from there.

🔌 Ports

From a Node's Ports table, right-click any port row to assign it — the context menu offers Assign to Circuit, Assign to Cable, and Assign to IP.

Assigning to a Circuit or Domain (IP) is validated against that circuit/domain and checked for double-booking — you can't accidentally assign a port that's already committed elsewhere.
Assigning to a Cable opens the cable-routing flow used for DDF/ODF patching — see DDF / ODF.
You can select multiple port rows at once for bulk actions (for example, reserving a batch of ports for a circuit migration — see Circuits & migration).

🗄️ Racks

A Rack is the physical rack or frame housing equipment and DDF/ODF panels at a Site. Its detail view lists what's mounted in it — open any item to jump straight to that Node or DdfOdf record.

🔀 Circuits & migration

A Circuit is a logical, end-to-end network path — the thing a customer actually buys. Its detail view shows the ports/cards carrying it at each end, plus tabs for its lifecycle status and migration actions.

Circuit detail view with Tree, Path, Cables, Ports and Int. Ports tabs, and an Actions & Relations panel — A Circuit's detail view — carrier tree, ports, and migration actions on the right

Status tabs

Status	Meaning
MI	Migration — the circuit is actively being moved to new equipment/ports.
RFC	Ready For Ceasure — the old path is confirmed clear and ready to be decommissioned.

Running a migration

Open the circuit and select the port(s) on its current path that need to move.
Reserve to Ceasure — right-click the selected port(s) and choose this action to reserve them against the circuit ahead of decommissioning. You can do this for one port or several at once.
Assign Future Port — pick the new port(s) the circuit will move onto.
Once the new path is live and the old one is confirmed clear, change the circuit's status to reflect the ceasure.

Requires write access Reserving ports, assigning future ports, and changing circuit status all require the write role or above — see Roles & permissions.

🔗 OLO circuits

An OLO Circuit is a circuit belonging to an Other Licensed Operator — it carries an externally-assigned identifier rather than an internal one, but otherwise browses and searches the same way as a regular Circuit.

🧷 DDF / ODF

A DdfOdf record represents a Distribution Frame or Optical Distribution Frame — the patch panel where physical cross-connects (cable jumpers) are made between equipment.

Open a DdfOdf record to see its panel layout and what's currently patched into each position.
Use the cable routing tool (reached from a port's right-click Assign to Cable action, or directly from the DdfOdf view) to record a new patch — it walks the full physical path so the DdfOdf's "full path" stays accurate.

🌐 Domains & IPs

A Domain represents an IP address space. From a Domain's detail view you can see which IPs are assigned, and assign or remove an IP against a port from there (or via the port's right-click Assign to IP action).

🧾 Customers & orders

A Customer record groups the Orders and Circuits that belong to that customer. An Order ties a customer's request to the specific circuits and equipment provisioned to fulfil it — open an order to see everything linked to it in one place.

🕘 History & audit trail

Every record type has a History tab showing a plain-language log of changes made to it — who did what, and when.

Example entry: "Created card 789080 (1-PORT 1000BASE-LX) on PE76-DUB-EU."

A record's History tab listing who changed what and when, going back through legacy IMS entries — A History tab — user, timestamp, and a plain-language description for each change

This is the same audit trail the legacy IMS system kept, so history from before the NITS rollout is still visible alongside newer entries.

➕ Creating records

Wherever you have write access or above, a Create button appears for that record type (Site, Customer, Node, Circuit, Order, DdfOdf, OLO Circuit) — it opens a form pre-scoped to the context you're already in.

Note Which Create buttons you see can also depend on a feature-flag rollout an admin controls — a new creation flow may be enabled for a small group of users before everyone gets it. If a Create button you expect is missing, ask a NITS admin whether it's still being staged out.

⊞ Topology Map Admin

The Topology Map (/admin/network-topology) is an admin-only, whole-network view — sites, nodes, rings, and circuits plotted together, with filters and a summary panel. It opens in a new tab from the Explorer's top bar.

⟁ Trace Map

The Trace Map (/trace-map) shows one circuit's physical path end-to-end as a standalone diagram, opened in a new tab. From the Explorer, open a circuit and click Trace Map in the top bar to trace the circuit you're currently viewing.

🐞 Reporting a problem

A small feedback widget is available throughout the app for reporting bugs or issues, screenshot included automatically. Reports land in the feedback backlog at /feedback, where they're triaged.

🛠️ Admin area Admin

These pages are only reachable with the admin role.

Page	What it's for
`/admin/users`	Grant, change, or revoke a user's role (`read` / `write` / `admin`). This is also where a "pending access" user gets unblocked.
`/admin/flags`	Staged rollout of Create-form features — set a rollout stage and/or allowlist specific users for a feature before it's generally available.
`/admin/service-accounts`	Create, list, and revoke API keys for the Automation API (see below). Keys are shown once at creation — copy it immediately, it can't be recovered later.
`/admin/api-tester`	A browser console for trying any Automation API endpoint with a real key before wiring it into a script.
`/admin/network-topology`	The Topology Map — see above.

🤖 Automation API

Separate from human sign-in, the Automation API lets scripts and automated jobs query circuit/node data using an API key instead of a NITS login. Ask a NITS admin to create a service account for your script — see the full Automation API reference for endpoints, authentication, and rate limits.

📖 Glossary

NITS: Network Inventory Transformation System — this application.
IMS: The legacy Inventory Management System NITS replaces; same underlying data.
Explorer: The main NITS screen (/explorer) for searching and browsing every record type.
Site: A physical location; has a shared city name and a unique location code.
Node: A piece of network equipment installed at a Site.
Shelf / Slot / Card: The physical hierarchy inside a Node.
Sub-slot / SFP: A pluggable transceiver bay nested inside a Card.
Port: The lowest-level connection point; named by its full parent-card chain, e.g. 9/2/5.
Rack: A physical rack housing equipment and DDF/ODF panels.
DdfOdf: Distribution Frame / Optical Distribution Frame — the patch-panel entity for cable cross-connects.
Circuit: A logical end-to-end network path/service.
OLO Circuit: A circuit belonging to an Other Licensed Operator, with an externally-assigned reference.
Domain: An IP address space entity, for assigning IPs to ports.
Order: A customer's request, tied to the circuits/equipment provisioned to fulfil it.
Picker: The grid of candidates shown when a search matches more than one record.
History / Audit trail: A record's per-entity change log tab.
Feature flags: Admin-controlled staged rollout of Create-button features.
Topology Map: Admin-only whole-network map (/admin/network-topology).
Trace Map: Standalone single-circuit path viewer (/trace-map).
MI / RFC: Circuit statuses: Migration, and Ready For Ceasure.
Automation API: Separate, API-key-authenticated integration API for scripts/automated clients.

❓ FAQ & tips

I searched for a site and got several results that look identical — which one do I want?

Check the unique location/site code column (e.g. IEDUB2219), not the shared city name (e.g. DUB) — many sites in the same city share the same name. See Searching & the picker.

A card or port is showing blank details, or says something's "forbidden" — is it broken?

Usually not — this happens when you're looking directly at an SFP sub-slot nested inside a card. Open the parent card first, then drill into the sub-slot from there. See Nodes & equipment.

I don't see a Create button I was told exists.

You may not have write/admin access, or the feature may still be in a staged rollout. Ask a NITS admin. See Creating records.

How do I move a circuit off equipment that's being decommissioned?

That's a circuit migration: reserve the old ports to ceasure, assign the future port(s), then update the circuit's status once the new path is confirmed. See Circuits & migration.

Who do I ask to get access, or to change my role?

A NITS admin — reach them via /admin/users if you already know one, or via the manager-approval flow shown on the "Waiting for access" screen. See Signing in.

I found a bug — where do I report it?

Use the feedback widget available throughout the app (it attaches a screenshot automatically). See Reporting a problem.