Creating a dashboard

As a reporting administrator or editor, create a dashboard to visualize and analyze data. The dashboard displays information from various data sources in panels that are organized in rows. You can use different visualization types in different panels of the dashboard. Each panel displays information from data sources in your environment. You can customize panels to create the best visualization for your dashboards. For example, you can use a line graph in one panel and a bar chart in another.

Panels use queries to fetch information from data sources. Each data source has its own query type. Therefore, you can include only one data source per query. You can add multiple queries in a panel.

Related topics

Creating-and-customizing-dashboards

Configuring-dashboards-with-additional-customizations

To create a dashboard

The following video (2:57) explains how to create a dashboard.

Play video icon.pnghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5kmZTSppow

  1. Do one of the following:
    • On the Home page, click New_Dashboard.pngand select New Dashboard.
    • From the navigation menu, click Dashboards. Then click New > New Dashboard.

  2. On the New dashboard page, click Add visualization.
    Alternatively, you can add an existing panel from the library panels. For more information, see Library panels.

    A library panel is a reusable panel that you can use in any dashboard. When you change a library panel, that change applies to all instances where the panel is used. Library panels streamline the reuse of panels across multiple dashboards. 

    You can save a library panel in a folder with the saved dashboard.

    Refer to the Grafana documentation for more details:


  3. In the Query section, select a data source for your dashboard, and add a query for the data source.
    Use Query Inspector to inspect and verify your query. For more information about queries, click Queries.

  4. In the Panel tab, expand Visualization to select a visualization type. 
    (Optional) For example, select the BMC Bar Chart visualization type. To use this visualization type, do the following tasks:

    1. In the Display area, choose the display, mode, order and tooltip type for your panel.
    2. Select the settings for legends in the bar chart.
    3. Select the fields and units for the chart axes and data.

    On the basis of the query data, the Suggestions tab will display the list of the suggested Grafana visualization plugins. 

    If a panel displays an error while rendering the data, click Open visualization suggestions to see the list of the suggested panel plugins. 

  5. (Optional) If you want to add a cross-launch to another dashboard or an external URL from the dashboard, do the following:
    1. In the Panel tab, expand Links and click Add Link.

    2. Add a title and the URL for the link.

      Important: While adding a link to the Discover tab, the ISO date format is required

      You can add a cross-launch to BMC Helix Log Analytics > Discover tab with the date filter intact so you can view data from the selected date range in the Discover tab. To do this, ensure that you use the ISO date format while adding a link to the Discover tab.

      Click to view instructions:

      In the URL field, add the URL for the Discover tab. For example:

      https://<BMC Helix Log Analytics host>/loganalytics/app/kibana#/discover?_g=(filters:!(),refreshInterval:(pause:!t,value:0),time:(from:'${__from:date:iso}',to:'{__to:date:iso}'))&_a=(columns:!(_id),filters:!(),index:'1524107586_default_index_pattern',interval:auto,query:(language:kuery,query:''),sort:!())

      Ensure the following:

      • You selected the ISO format to add the from and to values as shown below:
        from:'${__from:date:iso}',to:'{__to:date:iso}'
      • You added single inverted quotes for the from and to values.
    3. Click Open in new tab and save the link.
  6. (Optional) Use other options in the Panel tab to further enhance your panel.
  7. Repeat these steps to add multiple panels to the dashboard. 
  8. Save your changes.

Tip: Quick access from the home page

To quickly open the dashboard from the home page, mark it as a favorite by using the star icon. Additionally, after you open a dashboard, it is available under Recently viewed dashboards on the home page. 

Best practice

  • BMC recommends not to configure more than 10-12 panels per dashboard, which includes KPIs or metrics captured in the top panels, and rest with charts and crosstab visualization.
  • Avoid table visualizations in the parent dashboard if there are charts visualizations for the same dashboard.
  • Filters can enhance dashboard performance. Use filters while creating dashboards to avoid errors such as the following:

    • not enough memory for processing
    • unique timeseries exceeds 500000

You can use filters such as service name, host name, or entity name.


To edit a dashboard

As a tenant administrator or an editor, you can edit dashboards. You can add a panel to an existing dashboard, edit an existing panel, or remove a panel from the dashboard.

  1. Open the dashboard that you want to edit. 
  2. Do any of the following:
    • Add a panel as follows:
      1. On the top right corner, click Add Add_visualization.png and select Visualization.
      2. Click Add visualization.
      3. In the Query section, select a data source for your dashboard and add a query for the data source.
        Use the Query Inspector button to inspect and verify your query.
      4. Repeat these steps to add multiple queries to the panel.
      5. Save your changes.
    • Edit a panel as follows:
      1. On the top right corner of a panel, click the Menu icon and select Edit.

      2. Update the panel and save your changes.

        Validate the query

        If you change the query configurations, ensure that you validate the query. Use the Query Inspector button to inspect and validate the query.

    • Delete a panel:
      On the top right corner of a panel, click the Menu icon and select Remove.
  3. Click Save save_icon.png.
  4. (Optional) Select one of the following options:
    • Save current time range as dashboard default—Select this option to save the current time range as default time range. This option appears after you change the time range in the dashboard. 
    • Save current variable values as dashboard default—Select this option to save the current filter values as default. This option appears after you change the filter values in the dashboard.
  5. Save the dashboard.


To delete a dashboard

As a tenant administrator or an editor, you can delete the dashboards you created. Do one of the following:

  • To delete a dashboard from the Dashboards page:
    1. From the navigation menu menu_icon.png, click Dashboards.
    2. Select a dashboard.
      If dashboards are arranged in folders, click a folder, and then select a dashboard from the list.
    3. Click Delete.
  • To delete a dashboard from the dashboard settings:
    1. Open a dashboard and click the Settings icon dashboard_settings_icon.png.
    2. On the General page, click Delete.

 

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