Newbie Question

[MisterVapor]

My company is in the process of integrating Hyperic HQE (enterprise edition) to monitor our systems. I am an end user of the product but I was a programmer in a previous life and I have a tendency to delve deeper into interfaces to figure out how to get into trouble...I mean find enhancements. My question revolves around the default columns in the Operations Center (or any screen for that matter), can they be customized? Can we add additional columns or are we pretty much STUCK with what comes default? If we CAN add additional columns, can they be imported from an external database or XML file?

Our Network Operations Center monitors these systems. As alerts pop up, we look into a different database to find out more specific details about the alert...i.e. "oh chit, this is a problem...DO SOMETHING"....or "Forget this one, it's a false alarm, we just want to track it for chits and giggles". I think it would be REALLY useful if we could pull in some of those details as alerts pop up. Is this possible? Is there a plugin out there that does that already? Has anyone else already implemented this concept?

Thanks in advance, I'm sure this is a detailed response.

MrVapor