Meraki and Catalyst Center Global Overview

Integrated Overviews

Managing your network at global scale just got easier. This unified cloud-based solution delivers seamless visibility and streamlined operations across both platforms, empowering enterprises to operate efficiently regardless of their deployment model.

Aggregated Health and Alerts

Challenge: Ensuring performance for networks across multiple platforms can be difficult.

Solution: The Global Overview aggregates health and alerts from all of your Dashboard Organizations and Catalyst Center deployments, enabling administrators to swiftly troubleshoot critical issues.

Critical Alerts from Poor Performing Networks & Sites

Challenge: Viewing alerts separately on Catalyst Center and Meraki Dashboard can delay incident response.

Solution: The Global Overview aggregates alerts into a single interface, enabling faster response times and better incident management.

Seamless Navigation with Single Sign-On

Challenge: Users need quick access to both Meraki Dashboard and Catalyst Center without multiple authentication steps.

Solution: Single sign-on capabilities allow users to use their Merkai Dashboard admin credentials for identity authorization when cross-launching to Catalyst Center.

Health of networks & sites

This view provides a summary view of the alerts from all Meraki dashboard networks and Catalyst Center sites. Network and site health is categorized based on the number of critical or warning active alerts impacting the network or site.

• Poor health: A network or site is poor if it has one or more critical, P1 or P2 alerts. Additionally a Catalyst Center site can be marked as poor if more than 40% of devices in the site have a poor health score.
• Fair health: This is only applicable for dashboard networks. A network is fair if there are no critical alerts and it has 1 or more warning alerts
• Good health: A network or site is good if it has no critical, P1 or P2 or warning alerts.

Offline/Poor network devices

This view provides a summary of all devices with that are offline or in poor health from all Meraki dashboard organizations or Catalyst Center controllers. Device health is categorized based the alert or health state of the device. 

• Offline / Poor health: Meraki dashboard managed devices that are unreachable or Catalyst Center managed devices that have a poor health score.
• Warning: Meraki dashboard managed devices that have a warning alert or Catalyst Center managed devices that have a fair health score.
• Online: Meraki dashboard managed devices that are online and have no active alerts or Catalyst Center managed devices that have a good health score.
• Dormant: Meraki dashboard managed devices that have been unreachable/offline for more than 7 days or Catalyst Center managed devices that no health score.

This view provides the summary status of network devices:

• Routers & WAN Appliances: Catalyst routers managed by Catalyst Center and MX appliances.
• Distribution Switches: Switches classified as distribution in Catalyst Center. MS400 series and Cloud Managed C9500 series.
• Access Switches: Switches classified as access in Catalyst Center. MS100, MS200, MS300 series and Cloud Managed C9200 and C9300 series.
• WLCs & CGs: Cloud managed C9800 wireless LAN controllers and Campus Gateway.
• Access Points
• Cellular Gateways

Networks and Sites

This view lists all the network and sites that are classified as poor. The list is sorted by critical alerts so you can identify and troubleshooting the most critical sites. A count of clients is provided and can be sorted to see which poor performing sites may have the most impact to end users. 

To see all the alerts on the network click the critical alert counts to view a list of the critical alerts and then seamlessly transition to the network / site alerts and issues.

Global Search

Available May '26

Now Including Catalyst Center results with cross-launch

Global Overview Search extends the Cisco Meraki Dashboard global search experience by adding support for Catalyst Center-managed resources. This feature allows administrators to quickly locate infrastructure and client information across both Meraki and Catalyst Center environments from a single, unified search bar, eliminating the need to know which specific Catalyst Center instance manages a particular resource.

Prerequisites

Before the you can connect your Catalyst Center to the Meraki Cloud the following is required:

• Organizations: Currently the Meraki and Catalyst Center Global Overview supports up to 30 total organizations (Dashboard or Catalyst Center types) per dashboard administrator. If your Dashboard account is an administrator of more than 30 organizations you will be only be able to view the Meraki only version of Global Overview. Please check back often as we will be continuously enabling support for more organizations.

• Devices managed: 
  • Dashboard Organizations with 20,000 total devices is supported. 
  • Catalyst Centers with 5,000 total devices managed is supported.
• Catalyst Center Global Manager: A Catalyst Center controller can only be connected to either Catalyst Center Global Manager or Dashboard. It cannot be connected to both at the same time. 
• Catalyst Center software update: 
  • 2.3.7.10 - requires a software maintenance update. Please installed the SMU installation package required for Meraki Dashboard integration. 
  • 2.3.7.11
  • 3.1.6 with GSMU 100 (GSMU is currently Controlled Availability)
  • 3.1.6 with GSMU 200 (Controlled Availability)
  • 3.2.2 (currently Controlled Availability)
• Catalyst Center Appliances: Virtual Catalyst Center supported on Catalyst Center 3.1.6 and higher.
• Initiate Meraki Dashboard Global Overview: If your Meraki Dashboard account is currently only a member of a single Organization, you must create a temporary new organization to initiate the Global Navigation Menu. For directions on how to initializing the Global Overview, go to Global Overview.

If you do not have an existing Dashboard account or organization and would like to connect Catalyst Center to dashboard, go to Creating a Dashboard Account and Organization

• Register Catalyst Center with Cisco Catalyst Cloud: Each Catalyst Center you wish to connect to the Meraki Cloud must be registered with Cisco Catalyst Cloud to enable Meraki application for connectivity. In Catalyst Center go to System Settings > External Services > Cisco Catalyst Cloud to register.
• Catalyst Center Integration Dashboard Cluster Support: Catalyst Centers can only be integrated in the Meraki.com cluster. Additional Geo Cloud clusters will be supported in the future. 

When Catalyst Center is integrated to the Meraki Dashboard, each Catalyst Center cluster will have a dedicated Dashboard Organization. This will be a Dashboard Organization with a limited experience and will allow users to view some basic "Organization Settings" about their Catalyst Center connection to the Meraki Dashboard and to manage Organization administrators.

Add Catalyst Center Organization

1. Dashboard administrators assigned to multiple Organizations will see a link called “Global Overview” at the top of the left hand navigation. Select Global Overview > Monitor > Overview. Navigate to Overview to add your Catalyst Center to the Meraki Dashboard.

2. To add Catalyst Center to Dashboard click Add organization, select Add Catalyst Center as an organization. 

 

 

 a. Enter the following information and click Add Organization.

Cloud hosting region: Select witch geographical region this organization should be hosted in. Note: At launch, you can only add Catalyst Center to Organizations in the dashboard.meraki.com domain.

Organization name: Please name the organization that will host your Catalyst Center connection. Note: This is the name that will appear in the Global Overview organizations list as well as in the Meraki Organization navigation menu.

Catalyst Center IP address or FQDN (optional): You can optional enter the IP address or FQDN you use to access the Catalyst Centers user interface. Note: Dashboard will not attempt to initiate any connection to Catalyst Center, this IP address will help Dashboard build custom URLs used for cross-launching.

Catalyst Center Member ID: The Catalyst Center member ID is used to uniquely identify and register your Catalyst Center instance with the Meraki Cloud. You can find your Catalyst Center Member ID in the Catalyst Center Help Menu > About

b. After click Add organization, you will be prompted to sign in to your Catalyst Center to active the Meraki application.

Click Sign in Catalyst Center to open Catalyst Center. Note: Your browser must be able to reach the Catalyst Center management IP address for cross-launching to work from the Meraki Dashboard.

3. Log in to Catalyst Center and navigate to System > Settings > External Services > Cisco Catalyst Cloud. 

a. If your Catalyst Center is not yet registered with Catalyst Cloud click Register to complete the registration process. 

Cisco Catalyst Cloud window is displayed where you will be presented with a pop-up and a code. Click Next. 

b. Sign in with your Cisco virtual account administrator email and password to register Catalyst Center to Cisco Catalyst Cloud.

 

c. After you have logged in successfully, the screen will show the registration status between the Catalyst Center and the Cisco Catalyst Cloud.

d. Once Catalyst Center is registered, Catalyst Center will display a list of available Applications. Find Meraki Dashboard and click Activate.

Manage Org Admins for Catalyst Center Identity Authorization

Catalyst Center Authorization

When you integrate your Catalyst Center to the Meraki Dashboard Global Overview, Dashboard administrators can view Global Overview Catalyst Center data for each integrated Catalyst Center they are authorized for and can cross launch into Catalyst Center webUI interfaces without entering their username and password again if the same Dashboard administrator username exists in both Dashboard and Catalyst Center. Your passwords can be different. 

 

 

If external authentication is enabled on a specific Catalyst Center and it is integrated with the Meraki Dashboard, any cross-launch to that Catalyst Center fails and data specific to the controller is not fetched if the user has not logged in at least once to Catalyst Center using their external authentication credentials. Users must log in to Catalyst Center at least once before they can view any Catalyst Center controller data in the Global Overview or perform a cross-launch.

Adding Organization Administrators to Catalyst Center Organizations

Catalyst Centers integrated will appear in the Meraki Dashboard navigation menu under Organizations. 

 

 

Under Organization > Administrators, click Add Admin along the left side of the page

1. Enter the admin's Name and the Email they will use to log in.
2. Choose a role. There are no configurations that can be performed on Catalyst Center Organizations. However, Full Access role administrators will have permissions to delete the Organization and disable the integration.
3. Click Create admin.