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
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
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 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:
-
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.
-
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.
-
From the Data tab in the visualization builder, configure the metric and
bucket aggregations for the visualization.
-
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
to view the results of your action within the preview canvas, or click Discard
changes
to undo a change. You can also click 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.
-
When the configuration is complete, save the visualization:
-
Click Save.
-
Specify a name for the visualization in the text field (if not already specified).
-
Click the Save button. (If you have previously saved, confirm that you
want to overwrite.)
-
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.