Dashboards
Introduction
Dashboards are defined by administrator and allow to combine any available visualization components with data from multiple sources in order to create high-level views to see network (or parts of it) health at a glance. For example, below is a dashboard showing traffic information from core router, as well as CPU usage from vital nodes:
There are two ways to access dashboards:
- Open dashboard from Object Browser
- Switch to Dashboard perspective and select dashboard with left-click
Configuration
Dashboards is a special type of objects created in Dashboards tree. To create a new dashboard, select Create dashboard from context menu of Dashboards object or if ant existing dashboard object. To configure dashboard content, open object's properties and go to Dashboard Elements page. Here you can define number of columns in dashboard, and manage list of elements. Press Add to add new element. You will be prompted with element type selection dialog:
When new element added, you can edit it by double-clicking on record in elements list, or by pressing Edit button. Each dashboard element has Layout property page which controls element's layout inside dashboard, and one or more element type specific pages to control element's appearance and displayed information. The following element types are available:
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Alarm Viewer | List of alarms for given object subtree. |
| Availability Chart | Pie chart showing availability percentage for given business service. |
| Bar Chart | Bar chart. |
| Bar Chart for Table DCI | Bar chart built from data collected via single table DCI. |
| Custom Widget | Custom widget provided by third party console plugin. |
| Dashboard | Another dashboard object (or multiple objects) rendered as element of this dashboard. |
| Dial Chart | Dial chart. |
| Geo Map | Geographic map centered at given location. |
| Label | Text label with configurable text and colors. |
| Line Chart | Line chart. |
| Network Map | Network map object rendered as dashboard element. |
| Pie Chart | Pie chart. |
| Pie Chart for Table DCI | Pie chart built from data collected via single table DCI. |
| Separator | Separator, can be shown as line, box, or simply empty space. |
| Status Chart | Bar chart which shows current status distribution for nodes under given root. |
| Status Indicator | Shows current status of selected object. |
| Tube Chart | Tube chart. |
| Tube Chart for Table DCI | Tube chart built from data collected via single table DCI. |
| Web Page | Web page at given URL rendered within dashboard. |
Element Property Pages
Chart
Chart page is available for all chart type elements: Bar Chart, Bar Chart for Table DCI, Dial Chart, Line Chart, Pie Chart, Pie Chart for Table DCI, Tube Chart, and Tube Chart for Table DCI. It defines basic properties of a chart.
Data Sources
Data sources page is available for all DCI based elements: Bar Chart, Dial Chart, Line Chart, Pie Chart, and Tube Chart. Here you can define what DCIs should be used as data sources for the chart. Up to 16 DCIs can be added to single chart. You can configure multiple properties for each data source. To edit data source, either double click on appropriate item in the list, or press Edit button. Data source configuration dialog looks like following:
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| Data collection item | DCI object to be used. |
| Display name | Name for this data source to be used in chart's legend. If left empty, DCI description will be used. |
| Color | Allows you to define specific color for this data source or let system to pick one automatically. |
| Area chart | This option is valid only for line charts and toggles data source display as filled area instead of line. |
| Show thresholds | This option is valid only for line charts and toggles display of configured thresholds. |
Layout
Layout page looks like following:
Meaning of each property is following:
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| Horizontal alignment | Horizontal alignment for this element. Possible values are FILL, CENTER, LEFT, and RIGHT. |
| Vertical alignment | Vertical alignment for this element. Possible values are FILL, CENTER, TOP, and BOTTOM. |
| Horizontal span | Specify how many grid cells this element will occupy horizontally. |
| Vertical span | Specify how many grid cells this element will occupy vertically. |
| Width hint | Hint for element's width in pixels. Default value of -1 means that layout manager will decide width for element. |
| Height hint | Hint for element's height in pixels. Default value of -1 means that layout manager will decide width for element. |
More detailed information about dashboard layouts can be found in UM:Dashboards#Understanding_Element_Layout.
Web Page
Web Page property page is available for web page type elements. Here you can define URL to be displayed and optional title. If tytle is not empty, it will be displayed above page content.
Understanding Element Layout
Dashboard uses grid concept to layout it's elements. Available space divided into rows and columns, and each element occupies one or more cells. Number of columns configured in dashboard object properties, and number of rows calculated automatically based on number of columns, number of elements, and number of cells occupied by each element. Elements are laid out in columns from left to right, and a new row is created when there are no space left for next element on current row. Each element has horizontal and vertical alignment properties. Default for both is FILL. Possible alignment values are following:
| Value | Description |
|---|---|
| FILL | Make element to fill whole cell. Also causes to grab excess free space available inside dashboard. If more than one element is trying to grab the same space, then the excess space is shared evenly among the grabbing elements. |
| CENTER | Center element within cell. |
| LEFT/TOP | Align element to left/top of the cell. |
| RIGHT/BOTTOM | Align element to right/bottom of the cell. |
Below is an example of complex layout configuration:
And the result is following:
Dashboard Rotation
To create configuration when console displays multiple dashboards one by one in a loop, follow these steps:
- Create all dashboards you want to show;
- Create additional dashboard object, with single element of type "Dashboard" inside;
- Add all dashboards you want to show to dashboard list of that element and set desired time between changing dashboards.
Below is sample configuration of two dashboards displayed in a loop for 40 seconds each.