Creating a dashboard

The installation and integration of IBM Cognos® Analytics is available only for technology preview, and is not for production usage.  The installation and integration of IBM Cognos® Analytics is available only for technology preview, and is not for production usage.

You can create a dashboard within IBM Cognos Analytics to build visualizations of your IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps data, such as alert and topology data. IBM Cognos Analytics dashboards help you to monitor events or activities at a glance by providing key insights and analysis about your data on one or more pages or screens.

Building a dashboard involves dragging data sources, visualizations, and widgets to the main canvas. You can also customize the appearance of the visualizations to make the data more visually appealing.

With a dashboard created, you can then use the analysis and reporting capabilities within IBM Cognos Analytics to discover patterns and relationships and gain further insights into your IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps data.

Before you begin

To create a dashboard within IBM Cognos Analytics, you must have a role with the following permission:

  • Manage dashboards/reports

You can download example dashboards for Cloud Pak for AIOps using IBM Cognos Analytics from github.com: aiops-cognos-analytics/examples.

Procedure

  1. From the main navigation menu, click New New icon.

  2. Click Dashboard.

  3. Select a template to use and click Create.

    Predefined templates contain grid lines for easy arrangement and alignment of visualizations and other elements. For example, you can create an infographic to convey information with pictures on one page that you scroll through.

    The dashboard displays a blank canvas that is ready for you to visualize your data. If this is your first time using this dashboard, the dashboard also processes your data sources. The Selected sources pane displays the progress of the data sources as a percentage until the processing is complete. Some functions in the dashboard are only available after the processing is complete.

  4. Ensure that the data sources that you want to use are displayed in the Selected sources pane.

    If no data source is displayed, click Select a source to find and chose your data source. If you want to add another data source, click the Add a source Add icon icon and select your data source.

  5. Work with charts on the dashboard. You can add visualizations to the dashboards in one of the following ways:

    • Have Cognos Dashboards choose the visualization for you. Cognos Dashboards provides a number of recommended visualizations based on the data that you are working with.

      To have Cognos Dashboards choose the visualizations for you, drag a measure or column on to the canvas. You can change to another visualization from either Recommended or from More.

    • Choose the visualizations yourself. You can customize your dashboard by choosing your own visualizations:

      1. Click the Visualizations Bar chart icon icon to display the available charts for your dashboard.

      2. Click the chart to insert it automatically to the canvas. You can also drag the chart and drop it to the canvas. After you insert the chart into the canvas, the dashboard automatically selects the Sources Sources icon icon for you to select the data for your chart.

      3. To move the chart on the canvas, click and drag the corresponding Move widget Move cursor icon icon

      4. From the Sources section, select your data source, then browse to a data column.

      5. Drag the data columns and drop them to an available section of the chart or graph. The chart uses the entire set of data from the data column.

      6. To filter the data column values, click the Filters Filters icon icon in the toolbar, then drag the data column and drop it to the All tabs icon or the This tab icon, then specify the filter settings. If you have multiple tabs, the filter settings that you specify in All tabs apply to all your tabs.

  6. Customize the appearance of the dashboard.

    1. Click the Widgets icon to display the list of available widgets and icons.

    2. Click a widget insert it automatically to the canvas. You can also drag the widget and drop it to the canvas.

      For more information about IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps widgets, see IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps widgets within IBM Cognos Analytics.

    3. To move the widget on the canvas, click and drag the corresponding Move widget Move cursor icon icon.

  7. Click Save to save your changes and create the dashboard.

    Note: Even if you do not manually save your dashboard, IBM Cognos Analytics automatically saves any changes that you made every 5 seconds.

Sharing the dashboard

You can share your dashboard with other users by copying the dashboard's URL. From the toolbar, click the Share Share icon icon. Chose your preferred method for sharing the dashboard, and then share the link, embedded code, or PDF. The user that you share the dashboard with can only edit the dashboard if they have the required permissions.

Editing the dashboard

If you return to the dashboard, the dashboard is in read-only mode if the Edit icon is gray Edit icon. If you want to edit the dashboard again, enable the edit mode by clicking the Edit icon until it is green with a checkmark Green checkmark edit icon.