Configuring visualizations

Use this information either when creating a visualization or when editing an existing visualization.

Before you begin

As a starting point for this task, you must have completed one of the following actions:
  • Clicked Add, and then Create new Visualization in a new dashboard page to open the Select visualization type page. (In this case, start from step 1 in the procedure that follows.)
  • Clicked Edit from an existing dashboard, and then clicked Add to open the Create new Visualization page. (In this case, start from step 1 in the procedure that follows.)
  • Clicked the Edit icon The Edit icon on a visualization container on an existing dashboard, to open the visualization builder page. (In this case, start from step 2 in the procedure that follows.)
  • Clicked the Edit icon The Edit icon for a visualization to open the visualization builder page. (In this case, start from step 2 in the procedure that follows.)

To configure visualizations, you must either be the owner of the API provider organization, or be assigned a role that has the Analytics > Manage permission for the selected Catalog or Space. For information about enabling Spaces in a new or existing Catalog, see Creating and configuring Catalogs and Enabling Spaces in a Catalog. For more information about assigning Catalog or Space permissions to a role, see Managing Catalog membership and Managing Space membership.

About this task

When you configure visualizations, you use the following Elasticsearch aggregations to define the type and level of information to be retrieved and displayed:
  • metrics: You can configure one or more metric aggregations that will calculate metrics based on values extracted from the indexed data fields. (Indexed fields are searchable and are available for use in visualizations.)
  • buckets: Buckets operate in a similar way to SQL GROUP BY statements and enable aggregate functions to be performed on a filtered data set. You can configure one or more bucket aggregations that will sort your data according to the criteria specified.

For detailed information about aggregations, see the Elasticsearch aggregations reference. For information about the indexed data fields that can be specified while configuring visualizations, see API event record fields.

You can also specify view options for each visualization type; for example, the capability to show or hide the tooltip and legend.

Note: The API Manager analytics component loads with a preselected default index pattern, which identifies the index against which search and analytics are run, and which scopes the Kibana queries to the default Catalog. To ensure tenant and Catalog isolation, this default index pattern cannot be customized by users.

Procedure

To configure a visualization, complete the following steps:

  1. From the Create New Visualization page, choose the type of visualization that you want to create:
    • Area chart
    • Bar chart
    • Coordinate map
    • Data table
    • Gauge
    • Goal
    • Heat map
    • Line chart
    • Markdown widget
    • Metric
    • Pie chart
    • Region map
    • Tag cloud
    • Tile map
    • Vertical bar chart
    Tip: If necessary, review the guidance on the page to help you decide which type you need.
  2. From the visualization builder page, define the content and layout for the visualization you are creating or editing.
    You can configure your settings by using the visualization builder controls in the left-hand pane, and then view the results of your actions in the preview canvas.
    1. From the Data tab in the visualization builder, configure the metric and bucket aggregations for the visualization.
    2. From the Options tab in the visualization builder, specify view options for the visualization.
    For full details about completing the visualization builder for your selected visualization, see the following information in the Kibana documentation:

    For additional information about visualizations and aggregations, see the Creating a Visualization section in the Kibana documentation.

    As you configure each setting in the visualization builder, you can click Apply changes Apply changes to view the results of your action within the preview canvas, or click Discard changes Discard changes to undo a change. You can also click the Refresh icon The Refresh icon to refresh the visualization preview. If you are creating a complex visualization, you might find it useful to save and name the visualization (as described in step 3) after the initial metric or bucket aggregations are configured, and then save in stages as you configure more aggregations for the visualization.

  3. When the configuration is complete, save the visualization:
    1. Click Save.
    2. Specify a name for the visualization in the text field (if not already specified).
    3. Click the Save button. (If you have previously saved, confirm that you want to overwrite.)
  4. Select Analytics in the navigation to exit the visualization builder page.
    You return to the previous dashboard.
    • If you created a visualization, it is added to the saved list.
    • If you edited an existing visualization, your changes are reflected in any dashboards that contain that visualization.