OBSERVABILITY PLATFORM
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Dashboards

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 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.

View dashboards

Select from the following methods to view your available dashboards.

To search for a dashboard from anywhere in Observability Platform:

  1. Click the global search bar to focus on it, or use the keyboard shortcut Control+K (Command+K on macOS).
  2. Click the Dashboards filter.
  3. Begin typing any part of the dashboard’s name.
  4. 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.

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.

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 a dashboard

To add a dashboard, you can:

Create a new dashboard

Select from the following methods to create a new dashboard.

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

To create a new dashboard:

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

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.

  1. In the Dashboards page, click the three vertical dots icon and then click Duplicate.

    Alternately, when viewing a dashboard, click Settings > Duplicate dashboard.

  2. 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.

  3. Click Save.

Your duplicated dashboard opens and is ready to edit.

Import a dashboard

You can import a Grafana dashboard as a classic dashboard using JSON.

Edit your dashboard settings

Users cannot modify Terraform-managed resources in the user interface, with Chronoctl, or by using the API. 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:

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

Reassign a dashboard’s owner

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

To reassign a dashboard:

  1. Select the dashboard you want to reassign.
  2. Click Settings.
  3. Click General.
  4. Click the Owner dropdown.
  5. 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.
  6. Click Apply, and then click Save on the dashboard itself to save the change.

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.

View dashboard code

Use the Code config tool to view or download the full dashboard’s code.

  1. Select a dashboard.
  2. Click Settings.
  3. Click Code config.

Review the version history

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

  1. Select a dashboard.
  2. Click Settings.

  3. 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.

    The Version History view retains up to 500 revisions, or up to 15 months of revisions if there are fewer than 500 revisions.

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:

  1. Select a dashboard.
  2. Click Settings.
  3. Click Connections.
  4. Add or remove a connection.

Delete a dashboard

Select from the following methods to delete a dashboard.

Users cannot modify Terraform-managed resources in the user interface, with Chronoctl, or by using the API. Learn more.

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

To delete a dashboard while viewing it:

  1. Click Settings.
  2. Click General.
  3. Click Delete dashboard.
  4. In the Delete dashboard dialog, click Delete to confirm the deletion.

You can also delete a dashboard from the Dashboards table:

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

Designate your favorite dashboards

You can designate certain dashboards as your favorites. Observability Platform lists your favorite dashboards on your personal home page and prioritizes them in global search results.

To designate a dashboard you’re viewing as a favorite, click the () star icon next to its title.

To designate a favorite dashboard from the Dashboards table:

  1. Hold the pointer over the dashboard you want to designate.
  2. Click the star icon that appears next to the dashboard’s name.

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.

Export a dashboard

To export a dashboard’s JSON configuration while viewing it:

  1. Click Settings.
  2. From the menu, select JSON. The Dashboard JSON dialog displays.
  3. Copy the JSON from the dialog. You can also update the JSON and click Apply to change the dashboard.

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.

For an overview of the optimization process, see the Query Accelerator section of the licensing information dashboard, as documented in Chronosphere-managed dashboards.

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