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Many features in Chronosphere Observability Platform share a common interface and methods for selecting a time range. Tools such as monitors, dashboards, service pages, and explorers use time ranges to segment or scope queries, charts, tables, and graphs. In these tools, the time range selector displays the defined time range and provides multiple methods to select a new time range. Click the time range selector to select a time range in one of the following ways:
  • Type a range in the search box, or set the From and To fields.
  • Select a preset relative range or period, such as Last 30 minutes or Yesterday.
  • Pick dates on the calendar.
Some time range selectors also provide additional controls to shift, expand, refresh, or pin the selected time range. Next to the selected time, the time since the page was last loaded displays if the page hasn’t reloaded recently.

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Enter a time range

You can enter a time range by typing, in either of two places that accept the same values:
  • The search box at the top of the dropdown, where you type the whole range. A single value sets the start and uses the current time as the end; type <start> to <end> to set both. Press Enter (Return on macOS) to apply.
  • The From and To fields, where you enter the start and end separately, then click Apply time range.

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Type a relative range

A relative range is measured backward from the current time. Enter a relative value using Observability Platform time units. The time range selector accepts any of these formats, where 1 is the quantity and week and w represent the time unit:
  • Last 1 week
  • 1 week
  • 1w
A bare duration, such as 5m, is shorthand for now-5m. You can enter any integer quantity greater than zero. Relative ranges support only millisecond and larger time units, and convert units smaller than a second to decimal values of a second.

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Type an absolute range

An absolute range has fixed start and end timestamps. Type a timestamp using the format MM/DD/YYYY hh:mm:ss AM/PM. The search box also accepts ISO 8601 timestamps. To set the end to the current time, enter now in the To field.

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Type a current or previous range

A snapped range rounds a relative expression to a calendar boundary, so you can select a period that’s still in progress, such as Today so far, or a completed period, such as Yesterday. Add a / and a time unit to the end of a relative expression to snap it. The start rounds to the beginning of the period and the end rounds to the end of the period, so using the same snapped expression for both covers the entire period. Time units are case-sensitive. For example, M means month and m means minute: For example:
  • now/d selects Today so far, from the start of the current day until now.
  • now-1d/d to now-1d/d selects Yesterday, the entire previous day.
  • now-1w/w to now-1w/w selects Previous week, the entire previous week.
To understand how snapping resolves, suppose the current time is Wednesday, September 9 at 2:30 PM. Use now-1d/d to now-1d/d to select Tuesday, September 8, from 12:00:00 AM to 11:59:59 PM. Choose now/d to select Wednesday, September 9, from 12:00:00 AM to 2:30 PM. You can also select these ranges from the preset list. See Current and previous periods.

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Filter the preset list

As you type in the search box, the preset list filters to match, so you can narrow it instead of applying a typed value.

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Select a preset range

The dropdown lists preset ranges you can select without typing.

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Relative presets

To select a predefined relative range:
  1. Click the time range selector field as a dropdown menu.
  2. Select a range in the list, such as Last 6 hours.

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Current and previous periods

Preset period ranges snap to a calendar boundary, so you can select a period that’s still in progress, such as Today so far, or a completed period, such as Yesterday. To select one of these ranges:
  1. Click the time range selector field as a dropdown menu.
  2. Select a range such as Today so far or Previous week from the list.
The following preset ranges are available: To type these ranges instead, see Type a current or previous range.

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Pick dates on the calendar

To select an absolute range from the calendar:
  1. Click the time range selector field as a dropdown menu.
  2. Navigate to the month of the start date. To go forward or backward one month at a time, click for the previous month and for the next month.
  3. Select the start and end dates on the calendar.
  4. Optional: Enter now in the To field to set the end to the current date and time.
  5. Click Apply time range to confirm the set time range.
To type an absolute timestamp instead of using the calendar, see Type an absolute range.

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Shift a time range

To shift the defined time range forward or backward in time while retaining the same duration, click the previous and next time range buttons. Shifting a relative time range also converts it to an absolute time range.

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Expand a time range

To expand the defined time range’s duration while retaining the same point in time at the range’s center, click the zoom out button. Expanding a relative time range also converts it to an absolute time range. On data visualization tools, there is no control to shrink, or “zoom in,” for a time range. Instead, click and drag within a panel visualization to select a time range.

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Refresh a time range

To manually refresh the current point in time for a relative time range, or to update a visualization’s contents within an absolute time range, click the time range selector’s Refresh button. On many pages, you can configure a default automatic refresh interval. For details, see Time ranges on dashboards.

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Pin a time range

You can pin a time range to specify a default range for a time range selector. When you return to a feature where you’ve pinned a time range, that feature applies the pinned range as the new default. To pin a time range:
  1. In the time range dropdown, click the pin icon.
  2. If a relative time range is selected, select whether to pin the relative time range, or an absolute custom time range of the same duration that ends at the current time.
To unpin a time range, click the pin icon.

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Copy a time range

After selecting a time range, click the Copy icon to copy the selected range.

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Use a different time zone

To override the time zone, in the time range dropdown, select an option from the Page time zone menu.

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Compare current data to past data

Comparison mode, sometimes called week-over-week view, is a Chronosphere feature that overlays historical data on your current data in dashboards. This feature provides additional context for comparing your current metrics with historical trends and expectations, or identifying recurring trends and outliers. To compare current data to past data:
  1. Click Compare.
  2. Select a past period to overlay onto the dashboard’s panels. The Preceding period option overlays the immediately preceding period of the same length as the selected time range. An additional query runs to pull historical (“offset”) time series into your graph, which returns data with the same resolution as your current data. Depending on the time period you select and your data retention settings, the result might include a gap for your most recent data, such as the last 10 minutes. Chronosphere matches the current and historical data queries using tag logic, with _offset_:true on the offset query and _series_:series<num> for all of the series. This associates data from the offset time series to the current series for similar presentation, so the results in comparison mode contain labels that resemble __chrono_offset__: offset_7d1h or __chrono_series__: "series1".
For details, see the Chronosphere blog. To disable the overlay, click Compare and select Off.