Best way to monitor swicth ports

is administratively shutting the ports down not an option?

I would rather not. I'd like to be able to plug something into it without having to enable the port. I would like to be able to automate distinguishing between a down port and an unplugged port. Is there a way to do that?

I don't think you can have it both ways.  As long as you have that option set, if it goes down, it's going to go into "unplugged" status.

Here's what I have done, however this is for a scenario where I expect the port to be in use soon, and once it's in use I expect it to stay that way.

I set up an alert that only writes an NPM event when the port is unplugged (this should only happen once, right after you set it that way, but for some reason here it refires periodically).  Then I set the reset on that alert to send me an email when the port comes up.  That email is my cue to go back and change the interface settings to NOT show as unplugged anymore. I also have this event opening a ticket in our ticketing system, so I don't forget to make the settings change.

FWIW :)

that sounds like the best option. Where do I put in a feature request to solarwinds?

You can submit a feature request for NPM here.

Thanks,
DH