Getting started with dashboards
The dashboards feature enables you to create consolidated and customized graphical views of your environment. You construct a dashboard by selecting a dashlet template and configuring it to access data about your monitored systems or applications. When the configured dashlet highlights a problem, you can also use it as an entry point to investigate and troubleshoot the root cause. The ability to share dashboards enables members of work groups to create and maintain a single dashboard that they can all use. If you find a shared dashboard that you like, you can copy it and use it as is or modify it as necessary.
Learning resources for dashboards
Any user can create a dashboard. However, users can create only simple dashboards before configuring the product. For example, you cannot configure dashlets that list the status of the top five processes in your business-critical system until someone configures the servers and details to monitor.
Dashlets
A dashlet displays a single graphic about a specific application or server. As you build your dashboard, you specify a dashlet template, and then configure it to the values for your systems. You can specify different types of dashlets or the same dashlet many times.
Suppose you want to show the top five and bottom five processes for four servers. As you create your dashboard, you would use the Top Bottom dashlet, and configure it twice for each server. After you finish, your dashboard contains one row with four columns–each column containing two dashlets, similar to the following illustration:
This example provides a very simple use case, but you can create dashboards to be as simple or complex as necessary.
Dashboards
You have numerous layout options when constructing dashboards. When configuring the layout, you can choose a single column in one row, or as many as four columns and an unlimited number of rows. In addition, you are not limited to one dashlet in a cell. In the earlier example, the dashboard contains a single row, but each column contains two dashlets. The ability to place multiple dashlets in each column of a row enables you to group similar items in your dashboard. During dashlet configuration, you can also specify the relative height of the dashlet. The dashboard in the following image provides an example of how you might organize three dashlets in a dashboard with two rows. 
Related topics
Consolidating-data-views-with-dashboards