Visualizing data as grids

As a tenant administrator or an editor, you can use the BMC Cross-tab visualization to configure dashboards. With this visualization, you can view a grid that shows the relationship between two dashboards. You can use this visualization with the Service-Management-query to fetch data from multiple sources in a single dashboard. As an example, see the out-of-the-box Service-dashboard, which fetches data from BMC Helix Operations Management, BMC Helix ITSM, and BMC Helix AIOps.

For information about configuring dashboards, see Configuring-dashboards-with-additional-customizations.

Example: View the open incidents by priority and status

Let's say you are a tenant administrator who wants to view the number of open incident by priority and status. You can use BMC Cross-tab visualization plug-in configured with the Service Management query to create a dashboard to show the data in cross-tab format.

To configure the BMC Cross-tab visualization

1. From the navigation menu , click Dashboard.
2. Click Add visualization.
3. In the Query section, select BMC Helix and add your queries. For instructions, see Configuring-dashboards-with-additional-customizations.
4. On the Panel tab, expand Visualization and select BMC Cross-Tab.
   
5. Expand BMC Cross-tab to configure the following:
   • Aggregator type—Select an aggregator type.
   • Max columns allowed—Specify the number of columns that are allowed in the cross-tab panel.
     The default value is 60 columns. 
   • Max rows allowed—Specify the number of rows that are allowed in the cross-tab panel.
     The default value is 100 rows.
   • Show Percentage of the Total row—Click to show or hide percentage.
   • Show Percentage of the Total column—Click to show or hide percentage.
   • Hide empty values—Click to show or hide empty values.
   • Show the Total columns and row—Click to show or hide columns and rows.

   • Configure the pivot categories for the rows and columns.

     How do I configure the fields? Click to read more...

     The fields on the dashboard contain the data that you add in the data fields for a panel.

     For example, the following screenshot displays the pivot categories that are available for a panel:

     

     You can configure the following for the fields:

     • The fields in columns or rows—Under Pivot Categories, drag and drop fields between the Column fields and Row fields sections to specify the fields to appear in columns and rows. The and Value fields section displays the value of the combination between the columns and rows based on the aggregator type that you selected.
     • The field filters—Under Pivot Categories, use the Field filters section to configure the filters that you want to see for each field on the dashboard. For example, you can select to display the assigned, in progress, and pending events in the Status row, and filter out the closed and cancelled events.
     • The sorting for rows and columns—Under Pivot Categories, use Sort order to display the rows and columns sorted in an ascending or descending order. Select Totals asc or Totals desc to sort the Totals row or column.
   • Header text color—Select the text color of the column and the row headers.
   • Header background color—Select the background color of the column and the row headers.
   • Fields alignment—Configure the alignment of table column and row heading fields and value fields. By default, column and row heading fields are aligned left and value fields are aligned right.
6. (Optional) In the Field tab, configure the custom options and the thresholds for the data.
   
   Do the following:
   
   1. Under Custom options, in the Cell display mode field, select an option to choose to color either the background or the text in the panel.
      Select No coloring if you don't want to use colors in the panel.
   2. Under Standard options—Set the following:

      • Unit—Configure the values as you want to see them in the chart.

        Important

        Changing the unit value will override the calculated values in the cross-tab panel. If you want to override the column and the row titles of the panel, use Add field override. 

      • Decimals—By default, this is set to 0 (Zero) to indicate that there are no decimal points in the X or Y-Axis of the chart. Configure the values as you want to see them in the chart.

   3. Under Thresholds, add the thresholds for your data and select a threshold mode.

      How do I determine the threshold mode? Click to read more...

      Select the Percentage threshold mode if you have selected one the following aggregator types in the Panel tab:

      • Sum as Fraction of Total
      • Sum as Fraction of Rows
      • Sum as Fraction of Columns
      • Count as Fraction of Total
      • Count as Fraction of Rows
      • Count as Fraction of Columns

      For all other aggregator types, use the Absolute threshold type.

   4. (Optional) Under Value mappings, configure the following:
      • Mapping type—Select a mapping type.

      • Value—Specify a value for the mapping.

        To change the value color, enable the color setting by performing these steps:

        1. From the Home page, navigate to Administration > Default preferences.
        2. Under Manage dashboard features, enable Headers color palette for BMC Cross-tab plugin.
      • Text—Specify the text to display.
   5. (Optional) Configure data links. For details, see To configure data links.
7. Save the panel.

To configure data links to navigate to other content

You can configure data links for metric and dimension fields to navigate to other content. For example, the BMC Helix Audit dashboard shows audit activities that are performed in BMC Helix Portal and BMC Helix Operations Management. You can configure data links to navigate to these dashboards from the Audit dashboard.

To configure data links for metric fields

1. Under Data links, perform these steps:
   1. Click Add link.
   2. Add the title and URL.
   3. (Optional) Add a variable to the end of the URL to display the applicable value for the field in this format:
      <URL>?<optional_string>=$(<variable_name>)
      Example: https://grafana.com?priority=($Priority)
      where Priority is a variable. When you hover over a metric field in the table, you see the link text and priority value for the field in the URL displayed on the dashboard.
   4. Specify whether you want to open the URL on a new tab or the same tab.
2. Save the changes.

The data link is added for all the metric fields.

To configure data links for dimension fields

1. Click Overrides.
2. Click Add field override, and then select Fields with name.
3. From the Fields with name list, select a dimension field for which you want to add a data link.
4. Click Add override property, and select Data links.
5. Under Data links, define the link text and URL.
6. (Optional) Add a variable to the end of the URL to display the applicable value for the field.
   Example: https://grafana.com?={–value.text}
   Tip: To view a list of variables to select from, press Ctrl + space after =.
7. Specify whether you want to open the URL on a new tab or the same tab.
8. Save the changes.