Visualize data using dashboards

Use dashboards to analyze your metrics by creating visualizations of query results that you can customize, filter, and focus. You can use this to identify and act on trends, correlate changes in data to incidents, and monitor real-time statuses. Chronosphere Observability Platform provides two types of dashboards:

Standard dashboards, documented on this page
Classic dashboards, based on Grafana

Standard dashboards are purpose-built for observability with Observability Platform, and are the only dashboards with a commitment to ongoing development.

Standard dashboards aren’t available to all Observability Platform users and might not be visible in your app. For information about enabling this feature in your environment, contact Chronosphere Support.

Dashboards are individual pages made up of panels. These panels can be different types, depending on the data or text you want to visualize. Dashboards have many customization options to help you focus on and group the information you need. Observability Platform lists your favorite dashboards on your personal home page and prioritizes them in global search results.

View dashboards

Select from the following methods to view your available dashboards.

Web
Chronoctl
API

To search for a dashboard from anywhere in Observability Platform:

Click the global search bar to focus on it, or use the keyboard shortcut Control+K (Command+K on macOS).
Click the Dashboards filter.
Begin typing any part of the dashboard’s name.
Click a dashboard listed in the search results to view it, or use the arrow keys to select the result and press Enter (Return on macOS).

To view all dashboards, in the navigation menu select Dashboards. This displays a table listing every dashboard in your organization.In the table’s Owner column, the collection icon indicates a dashboard is part of a collection. The service icon indicates a dashboard is part of a service.The table’s Type column indicates whether the dashboard is a classic or standard dashboard.The table’s Source column indicates how your organization manages each dashboard as an Observability Platform resource. Dashboards managed in Observability Platform or with Chronoctl list no source, and you can manage and modify them with either the app or Chronoctl. You must manage dashboards created in Terraform with Terraform.You can toggle the visibility of columns and pin selected columns to the left or right sides of the table by holding the pointer over the column and clicking the column settings icon.You can also filter the table’s contents to display only those with certain names or properties.

To filter the table’s contents by name, enter part or all of a dashboard name into the Search dashboards field.
To filter the table by team or owner, select their name from their respective Select a team and Select an owner dropdowns or enter part or all of their name into the fields to filter the dropdown options.
To filter the table by tag, click Select a tag and select its name from the suggestion list, or enter part or all of a tag name into the field to filter the list. Only classic dashboards support tags.
To filter the table to display only your favorite dashboards, click the View only my favorites toggle.
Include connected dashboards: If you filter dashboards by owner while the toggle is disabled, you’ll only get dashboards owned by that owner. When the toggle is enabled, your filter includes dashboards that are connected to that owner, even if they aren’t owned by that owner. Connections are based on collections.

Observability Platform displays your favorite dashboards and those you have recently opened on your personal home page. Your favorite dashboards also appear first in global search results.

To return a list of all dashboards with Chronoctl, use the chronoctl dashboards list command:

chronoctl dashboards list

You can list specific dashboards by name or slug by passing a comma-delimited list to the --names or --slugs flags, respectively. For example:

chronoctl dashboards list --names LIST

Replace LIST with a comma-separated list of dashboard names as a string, such as "Infra Dashboard,Frontend Dashboard".

Dashboard resources returned by list don’t contain the dashboard’s JSON definitions by default, but resources returned by read do. To include dashboard JSON with dashboards list, add the --include-dashboard-json option to the command:

chronoctl dashboards list --include-dashboard-json

To return a single dashboard, use the chronoctl dashboards read command:

chronoctl dashboards read SLUG

Replace SLUG with the dashboard’s slug.

To complete this action with the Chronosphere API, use the ListDashboards endpoint.Because the Chronosphere API requires authentication, include an API token with your curl request, as shown in the following example. For more details, see Create an API token.

export CHRONOSPHERE_API_TOKEN="TOKEN"
export CHRONOSPHERE_DOMAIN="INSTANCE.chronosphere.io"

curl -H "API-Token: ${CHRONOSPHERE_API_TOKEN}" \
     -X METHOD "https://${CHRONOSPHERE_DOMAIN}/ENDPOINT_PATH"

Replace the following:

TOKEN: Your API token.
INSTANCE: The subdomain name for your organization’s Observability Platform instance.
METHOD: The HTTP method to use with the request, such as GET or POST.
ENDPOINT_PATH: The specific endpoint you want to access.

View Chronosphere-managed dashboards

Observability Platform includes several dashboards to visualize information about itself and its usage within your organization. For more information, see Chronosphere-managed dashboards.

Create or import a dashboard

To add a dashboard, you can:

Create a new dashboard.
Duplicate an existing dashboard.
Import a classic dashboard.

Create a new dashboard

Select from the following methods to create a new dashboard. You can create a dashboard in the Observability Platform web interface, or define the dashboard in code and upload it. See the dashboard configuration schema for help defining fields in code.

Web
Chronoctl
Terraform
API

These steps apply only to standard dashboards. For classic dashboards, see Classic dashboards.

To create a new dashboard:

In the navigation menu select Dashboards.
Click + Add.
In the menu that appears, click New dashboard to open the Add dashboard dialog.
Enter a descriptive name in the Dashboard name field.
Enter an Owner in the corresponding fields to associate the dashboard with a Collection or Service.
Optional: Enter Tags in the corresponding field to associate the dashboard with key/value tag pairs.
Click Save.

You can also create a new dashboard from an existing panel, duplicate an existing dashboard, or import a JSON file.

To create a new dashboard using Chronoctl, configure it in a YAML resource definition and apply it.

If you don’t already have a YAML configuration file, use the chronoctl dashboards scaffold command to generate a template for a specific resource type:

chronoctl dashboards scaffold

You can redirect the results (using the redirection operator >) to a file for editing.

To create a new dashboard as code:

Configure the dashboard by editing the resource’s properties. Remove any properties you don’t want to configure. Define the dashboard within the YAML resource as a block of JSON. You can retrieve the JSON of an existing dashboard from Observability Platform by navigating to the dashboard and clicking the Download JSON button. For example, this resource creates an empty dashboard with the name Infra Dashboard and slug infra-dashboard:

api_version: v1/config
kind: Dashboard
spec:
  # Unique identifier of the Dashboard. If slug is not provided, one will be
  # generated based of the name field. Cannot be modified after the Dashboard
  # is created.
  slug: "infra-dashboard"
  # Required name of the Dashboard. May be modified after the Dashboard is created.
  name: "Infra Dashboard"
  # Required raw JSON of the dashboard.
  dashboard_json: >
    {
      "kind": "Dashboard",
      "metadata": {
        "name": "Infra dashboard"
      },
      "spec": {
        "events": [],
        "panels": {},
        "layouts": [],
        "variables": [],
        "duration": "30m"
      }
    }
  # Required collection associated with this dashboard.
  collection_slug: "infra-collection"

Apply the changes:
```
chronoctl apply -f FILE_NAME.yaml
```
Replace FILE_NAME with the name of your notifier YAML file.

To create a dashboard with Terraform:

Create or edit a Terraform file that updates the resource’s existing properties. You can export the configuration of an existing dashboard and edit it to create a new dashboard.
Run this command to apply the changes:
```
terraform apply
```

To complete this action with the Chronosphere API, use the CreateDashboard endpoint.Because the Chronosphere API requires authentication, include an API token with your curl request, as shown in the following example. For more details, see Create an API token.

export CHRONOSPHERE_API_TOKEN="TOKEN"
export CHRONOSPHERE_DOMAIN="INSTANCE.chronosphere.io"

curl -H "API-Token: ${CHRONOSPHERE_API_TOKEN}" \
     -X METHOD "https://${CHRONOSPHERE_DOMAIN}/ENDPOINT_PATH"

Replace the following:

TOKEN: Your API token.
INSTANCE: The subdomain name for your organization’s Observability Platform instance.
METHOD: The HTTP method to use with the request, such as GET or POST.
ENDPOINT_PATH: The specific endpoint you want to access.

After creating a dashboard, you can populate it with panels, add and edit dashboard variables and events, and configure its layouts. You can also associate Services to dashboards by using either Chronoctl or Terraform.

Duplicate a dashboard

You can duplicate dashboards, including in Observability Platform, and then customize the duplicate. Chronosphere-managed dashboards can be duplicated but not deleted.

In the Dashboards page, click the three vertical dots icon and then click Duplicate. Alternately, when viewing a dashboard, click Settings > Duplicate dashboard.
Enter the following information:
- Dashboard name: A name for the new dashboard.
- Owner: The service or collection that owns this dashboard.
- Optional: Select tags for the dashboard.
Click Save.

Your duplicated dashboard opens and is ready to edit.

Import a dashboard with JSON

Observability Platform lets you upload one or more dashboards as JSON files. To do so:

In the navigation menu select Dashboards.
Click + Add.
In the menu, click Import dashboard to open the Import Dashboards dialog.
Click Import or Drag and Drop dashboard JSON File to upload one or more exported dashboard JSON files, or drag and drop a dashboard JSON into the Import Dashboard JSON field. If the file fails validation, the dialog displays an error message that describes the failure. There is one entry for each uploaded file.
In the Upload Settings section, select an Owner for the dashboard to associate the dashboard with a collection or service.
Optional: Add a Tag.
Optional: Enter a descriptive name in the Name field. The field default is the import file’s name.
Optional: Enter Tags in the corresponding field to associate the dashboard with key/value tag pairs.
Click Import Dashboards to import the dashboard.

When complete, the dialog displays a Dashboard uploaded success message.

Import a classic dashboard

You can import a Grafana dashboard as a classic dashboard with Chronoctl or Terraform.

Edit your dashboard settings

Users can modify Terraform-managed resources only by using Terraform. Learn more.

All dashboards have common settings and tools in the Settings menu. These steps apply only to standard dashboards. For classic dashboards, see Classic dashboards.

Rename a dashboard

Select from the following methods to rename a dashboard.

To rename a dashboard:

Select the dashboard you want to rename.
Click Settings.
Click General.
Enter a new name in the Dashboard name field.
Click Apply, and then click Save on the dashboard itself to save the change.

To complete this action with the Chronosphere API, use the UpdateDashboard endpoint and update the name key of the dashboard object.Because the Chronosphere API requires authentication, include an API token with your curl request, as shown in the following example. For more details, see Create an API token.

export CHRONOSPHERE_API_TOKEN="TOKEN"
export CHRONOSPHERE_DOMAIN="INSTANCE.chronosphere.io"

curl -H "API-Token: ${CHRONOSPHERE_API_TOKEN}" \
     -X METHOD "https://${CHRONOSPHERE_DOMAIN}/ENDPOINT_PATH"

Replace the following:

TOKEN: Your API token.
INSTANCE: The subdomain name for your organization’s Observability Platform instance.
METHOD: The HTTP method to use with the request, such as GET or POST.
ENDPOINT_PATH: The specific endpoint you want to access.

Reassign a dashboard’s owner

Select from the following methods to reassign a dashboard to a different collection or service.

To reassign a dashboard:

Select the dashboard you want to reassign.
Click Settings.
Click General.
Click the Owner dropdown.
Scroll through the list and click the collection or service to which you want to assign the dashboard. To filter the list by owner name, begin typing a name into the dropdown field.
Click Apply, and then click Save on the dashboard itself to save the change.

To complete this action with the Chronosphere API, use the UpdateDashboard endpoint and update the collection key of the dashboard object.Because the Chronosphere API requires authentication, include an API token with your curl request, as shown in the following example. For more details, see Create an API token.

export CHRONOSPHERE_API_TOKEN="TOKEN"
export CHRONOSPHERE_DOMAIN="INSTANCE.chronosphere.io"

curl -H "API-Token: ${CHRONOSPHERE_API_TOKEN}" \
     -X METHOD "https://${CHRONOSPHERE_DOMAIN}/ENDPOINT_PATH"

Replace the following:

TOKEN: Your API token.
INSTANCE: The subdomain name for your organization’s Observability Platform instance.
METHOD: The HTTP method to use with the request, such as GET or POST.
ENDPOINT_PATH: The specific endpoint you want to access.

Create and configure dashboard variables

Dashboard variables let users dynamically redefine parts of panel queries and other features by selecting values from a dropdown or entering them into a field. For details about creating and configuring dashboard variables, see Customize panel queries with dashboard variables.

Add events to a dashboard

For information about adding events to a dashboard while viewing it, see Enable change events on dashboards.

Review the version history

You can view the history of changes made to a dashboard.

Select a dashboard.
Click Settings.
Click Version history to display a panel with two tabs:
- Code config: Displays a code representation of the selected entity as of the time of the selected revision.
- Code diff: Displays a Git-style diff of the most-recent change made to the entity, in Chronosphere API format. To compare the selected revision to another revision in the history, click the Compare With dropdown and select the timestamp of the revision that you want to compare.
  - Click Unified to see the diff stacked horizontally.
  - Click Split to see changes side by side. You can see both who made and the method used for the last change at the top of the list of changes.
To view a revision in the history, click any entry in the list of timestamped revisions. The timestamps default to your local timezone. You can view unchanged lines within the diff by clicking the Expand X lines links. For a natural language description of the differences between versions, click Explain what has changed. An information box appears with a summary of the changes. This summary can help users who are less familiar with code updates understand changes. Use the thumbs up or thumbs down icon to indicate whether the explanation was helpful or not.
The Version History view retains up to 500 revisions, or up to 15 months of revisions if there are fewer than 500 revisions.

Restore a previous version

When reviewing the version history, you can restore a prior version.

Select the version to revert to.
Click Restore to DATE, where DATE is the selected version.
Click Restore.

The dashboard refreshes and displays the restored version.

Connect a dashboard to a service

Services and collections can own dashboards, but you can also connect a dashboard to a service that doesn’t own it. You might have dashboards where different groups have responsibility for handling issues, but the information is important to other groups. To connect a dashboard to a service:

Select a dashboard.
Click Settings.
Click Connections.
Add or remove a connection.

Make your dashboard full screen

Observability teams often use full screen displays for operational dashboards, without menu bars cluttering the workspace. Observability Platform makes this feature available as Kiosk mode. To display Observability Platform in kiosk mode:

Select a dashboard.
Change any Compare or time period settings.
Click Settings.
Click Kiosk mode.

The dashboard expands to display in the full screen. Edit functions aren’t available when in kiosk mode. You can however refresh the dashboard, or move forward and backwards in the defined time period. To exit kiosk mode, click Esc.

Export a dashboard

Export your dashboard for use by your GitOps or infrastructure as code tools. To view or download the full dashboard’s code in Chronoctl, Terraform, or API format:

Select a dashboard.
Click Settings.
Click Code config.

To export a dashboard’s JSON configuration:

In the dashboard, click Settings.
From the menu, select JSON. The Dashboard JSON dialog displays.
Click Copy to copy the JSON to your clipboard, or click to download the JSON.

You can also manually update the JSON, and then click Apply to change the dashboard. To view or export JSON for a specific panel, view a panel’s JSON.

Delete a dashboard

Select from the following methods to delete a dashboard.

Users can modify Terraform-managed resources only by using Terraform. Learn more.

Web
Chronoctl
Terraform
API

These steps apply only to standard dashboards. For classic dashboards, see Classic dashboards.

To delete a dashboard while viewing it:

Click Settings.
Click General.
Click Delete dashboard.
In the Delete dashboard dialog, click Delete to confirm the deletion.

You can also delete a dashboard from the Dashboards table:

Hold the pointer over a dashboard’s row.
Click its settings icon.
Click Delete.
In the Delete dashboard dialog, click Delete to confirm the deletion.

To delete a dashboard with Chronoctl, use the chronoctl delete dashboard command:

chronoctl dashboards delete SLUG

Replace SLUG with the unique slug identifier for the dashboard you want to delete.

To delete a dashboard using Terraform:

Remove the dashboard definition from the Terraform file.
Run this command to apply the changes:
```
terraform apply
```

To complete this action with the Chronosphere API, use the DeleteDashboard endpoint.Because the Chronosphere API requires authentication, include an API token with your curl request, as shown in the following example. For more details, see Create an API token.

export CHRONOSPHERE_API_TOKEN="TOKEN"
export CHRONOSPHERE_DOMAIN="INSTANCE.chronosphere.io"

curl -H "API-Token: ${CHRONOSPHERE_API_TOKEN}" \
     -X METHOD "https://${CHRONOSPHERE_DOMAIN}/ENDPOINT_PATH"

Replace the following:

TOKEN: Your API token.
INSTANCE: The subdomain name for your organization’s Observability Platform instance.
METHOD: The HTTP method to use with the request, such as GET or POST.
ENDPOINT_PATH: The specific endpoint you want to access.

Modify a dashboard’s layout

Dashboard layouts help you organize related panels into panel groups. For more information, see Organize dashboard content with layouts.

View and compare specific time ranges

Comparison mode, sometimes called week-over-week (WoW) view, helps you overlay historical data on your current data in dashboards. This provides additional context for comparing your current metrics with historical trends and expectations, or identifying recurring trends and outliers. For details about using comparison mode, see Manage dashboard time ranges.

Query Accelerator

To help reduce the impact of slow queries on Dashboard performance, Observability Platform automatically optimizes queries. The optimization process detects slow aggregation queries in dashboard panels, creates pre-aggregated time series to reflect those rollups, and replaces the slow results with the optimized results at query time.

Observability Platform

Telemetry Pipeline

Tools

More information

View dashboards

View Chronosphere-managed dashboards

Create or import a dashboard

Create a new dashboard

Duplicate a dashboard

Import a dashboard with JSON

Import a classic dashboard

Edit your dashboard settings

Rename a dashboard

Reassign a dashboard’s owner

Create and configure dashboard variables

Add events to a dashboard

Review the version history

Restore a previous version

Connect a dashboard to a service

Make your dashboard full screen

Export a dashboard

Delete a dashboard

Modify a dashboard’s layout

View and compare specific time ranges

Query Accelerator

Observability Platform

Telemetry Pipeline

Tools

More information

​View dashboards

​View Chronosphere-managed dashboards

​Create or import a dashboard

​Create a new dashboard

​Duplicate a dashboard

​Import a dashboard with JSON

​Import a classic dashboard

​Edit your dashboard settings

​Rename a dashboard

​Reassign a dashboard’s owner

​Create and configure dashboard variables

​Add events to a dashboard

​Review the version history

​Restore a previous version

​Connect a dashboard to a service

​Make your dashboard full screen

​Export a dashboard

​Delete a dashboard

​Modify a dashboard’s layout

​View and compare specific time ranges

​Query Accelerator

View dashboards

View Chronosphere-managed dashboards

Create or import a dashboard

Create a new dashboard

Duplicate a dashboard

Import a dashboard with JSON

Import a classic dashboard

Edit your dashboard settings

Rename a dashboard

Reassign a dashboard’s owner

Create and configure dashboard variables

Add events to a dashboard

Review the version history

Restore a previous version

Connect a dashboard to a service

Make your dashboard full screen

Export a dashboard

Delete a dashboard

Modify a dashboard’s layout

View and compare specific time ranges

Query Accelerator