Creating a dashboard

Dashboard Designer contains ready to use default components for layouts, charts, widget templates, data definitions, and filters. You can either use these default components and create your dashboard, or you can first create your own custom components, and then drag them to a dashboard.

Before you begin

If you want to use custom layouts, manual data definitions, custom widgets, and custom filters in your dashboard, then ensure that those custom components are created.
If you want to use data sets in your dashboard, then ensure that those data sets are created.
For more information, see Creating a data set.
Ensure that an appropriate user role is assigned to you.
A user with Dashboard Developer role can create dashboards. A user with Menu Administrator or System Administrator role can create menus and publish dashboards. A user with Publisher role can deploy dashboards on Engine.

For more information, see Default Dashboard Designer roles.
If you want to set a background image for each widget within the dashboard, then ensure that those images are already available on your computer.
You can create specialized widgets within the dashboard. Specialized widgets include multi-chart widget, web widget, or widget that lists all the instances for a selected source and resource type. To create a web widget, you must ensure that the website does not have any IFrame restrictions.
For information about creating specialized widgets within the dashboard, see Specialized widgets.
If you want to create a widget to continuously render real-time data of applications, then you must use the Real Time connector. Also, you must use a Line chart only and in the chart properties, you must specify the number of data points to be displayed on the chart. You can add only one manual data definition and define only one series in the Line chart. Hence, you must select Define a Manual Series option in the Series Type tab while setting chart properties. If you select Define a Dynamic Series option, then the real-time data is not displayed. Also, multiple Y-axes are not supported. You must map timestamp data on X-axis only. You cannot change the chart type nor can you add widget-level filters or assign dashboard-level filters to the widget.
Also, ensure that Real Time Data Collector is installed and is up and running.

For more information, see Restarting Real Time Data Collector.

About this task

After you log in to the Dashboard Designer, you can select any of the following options on the landing page:

If you select the CREATE DASHBOARDS option, then a select layout window is displayed, after you select a layout, you are directed to a new dashboard page. The Dashboard Designer also displays a navigation pane with all the dashboard components.
If you select CREATE COMPONENTS, then a create components page is displayed, you must select a component that you want to create. For example, layouts, widgets, data definitions, or filters. After you select a component, you are directed to that component. Dashboard Designer also displays a navigation pane with all the dashboard components.

Alternatively, you click the Expand Expand icon to open the navigation pane of Dashboard Designer, which is to the left of the window. You can either click Dashboards and create a dashboard, or create any custom components.

You can save a dashboard at any step of dashboard creation. If the data definition is not set or is incomplete, then the dashboard is saved as a draft dashboard, and a Draft Draft icon is displayed next to it. After you set data definition in all the widgets of a dashboard, the dashboard is complete, and it displays a Dashboard icon next to it.

Procedure

To create a dashboard, complete the following steps:

In the navigation pane of Dashboard Designer, click Dashboards, and then click Create New Dashboard.
The Create a New Dashboard: Select a Layout window is displayed. The window displays three tabs:
- Recently used layouts
- Default layouts
- Custom layouts
The window also displays a Create a New Layout option.
For more information about default layouts and creating custom layouts, see Layouts.
Note: When you create or open a dashboard, the New Dashboard page displays a pop-up message that shows information about the Data Set feature. Even if you click the OK, got it button, the message reappears every time after you clear the cache.
In the Create a New Dashboard: Select a Layout window, click a layout, and then click Select.

The selected layout opens in a new New Dashboard page.
Click the Edit icon that is displayed next to the New Dashboard and Sub Title fields, and enter a name and sub title for your dashboard.

Note: Only alphanumeric characters, spaces, and underscore are supported.
The Gridlines checkbox is selected by default.
If you do not want the grid-lines view, clear the checkbox.
The Filter Area checkbox is selected by default.
If you do not want the filter area to be displayed, clear the checkbox.
Optional: To add default or custom filters to the dashboard, in the navigation pane, click Filters, and complete any of the following steps:
- Expand Default, and drag one or more default filters to the filter area of the dashboard.
  
  Note: You can add default filters to dashboards that contain Cloud APM, ITM, IBM Cloud Pak® for Multicloud Management - Monitoring, and Cloud Event Management data sources only.
- Expand Custom, and expand any of the listed custom categories, and drag one or more custom filters to the filter area of the dashboard.
For more information about default and custom filters, and creating custom filters, see Filters.

After you add filters, you must map the filters in the widgets. For more information, see Setting assisted data definitions.
Optional: To add multiple widget placeholders or charts within a widget of a dashboard, see Creating a multi-chart widget.
To add either a custom widget, default widget template, custom widget template, external URL, or a chart to each widget placeholder in a dashboard, complete any of the following steps:
- To add a custom widget or custom widget template, in the navigation pane, click Widgets > Custom, expand a widget category, and drag a custom widget or a custom widget template to the widget area.
  For more information about creating a custom widget or a custom widget template, and changing chart types, see Creating custom widgets, Saving custom widgets as templates, and Specialized widgets.
- To add a default widget template, in the navigation pane, click Widgets > Default, expand a template category, and drag a template to the widget area.
  After you drag a default widget template, click the Set Data Definition icon to select data sources and instances. For more information about setting assisted data definitions, see Setting assisted data definitions.
- To add a chart, in the navigation pane, click Chart, and drag a chart to the widget or chart area.
  Note: If you add a chart, then you need to either set data definitions or add the already created data sets, and set chart properties to complete the widget.
  - For setting a data set, see Data Sets.
  - For setting data definitions, see Creating custom widgets.
  You can add one or more widgets to a dashboard, and can also add multiple data sources to a single widget.
  Note: If you are adding multiple data definitions, then ensure that the data or column that is mapped on X-axis has identical data.
- To create a web widget in a dashboard, see Creating a web widget.
Optional: To add a background image to any widget within a dashboard, complete the following steps:
1. Click the Background Image icon, which is displayed on the upper right of that widget.
2. In the Background Image pop-up window, click Add Background Image, and then click Select from File.
3. Browse to the image file location on your computer, select the file, and then click Open.
  Note: You can add PNG, JPEG, JPG, or GIF image files of size less than or equal to 2 MB.
  
  The selected image is added as a background image to the widget. To replace the image, repeat the steps, and select another image. To delete the image, click No Background Image.
Optional: To move a widget to an empty widget area within the dashboard, click and drag the Move icon to the empty widget area.

Note: If a dashboard contains a multi-chart widget, then you cannot move that widget to an empty widget area within the dashboard nor can you move any other widget to an empty widget placeholder within the multi-chart widget.
Optional: After you add widgets to a dashboard, you can click the Set Relation icon to set relations between the widgets.

For more information about setting relations, see Setting relations.
To save the dashboard, click Save.
In the Save Dashboard window, complete the following steps:
- In the Dashboard Title field, enter a name for the dashboard.
- To save the dashboard to an existing category, click Existing category, select a category name from the drop-down list, and then click Save.
- To save the dashboard to a new category, click New Category, enter a category name, and then click Save.
To save the dashboard with another name, click the Save As option.

You can save a dashboard at any step of dashboard creation.
After you save a dashboard, to preview it, click the Preview icon.

Results

The newly created dashboard is listed under Most Recently Created Dashboards in the navigation pane, and displays any one of the following icons:

If data definition is set for all the widgets within the dashboard, then it displays a Dashboard icon next to it.
If data definition is not set or incomplete for any of the widgets within the dashboard, then it displays a Draft icon next to it.

The All Dashboards page displays the following audit trail details for each dashboard:

Dashboard name
Dashboard category
Date and time when the dashboard was first created, and the username of the user who first created the dashboard.
Date and time when the dashboard was last modified, and the username of the user who last modified the dashboard. Only the latest record is displayed.

What to do next

After a dashboard is created, based on your user role, complete any of the following tasks:

A user with Menu Administrator and System Administrator role must attach the dashboard to a menu and publish it. Only such dashboards that are attached to menus are displayed on Engine.
A user with a Publisher role can deploy the dashboard independently, that is, without attaching them to a menu. Click the Deploy icon to deploy the dashboard on Engine.
Such independently deployed dashboards are not displayed on the Engine user interface as they are not attached to any menu. However, such independent dashboards are listed in the Schedule Task window only.

If you want such independently deployed dashboards to be displayed on the Engine user interface, then you must attach them to a menu node and publish them.

You can view the published dashboards on the Engine only if you have access to an Engine instance and an Engine User Group.