Managing custom widgets, custom templates, or specialized widgets

You can view, search, modify, copy, or delete custom widgets, custom templates, or specialized widgets. You can publish custom widgets and specialized widgets independently, except multi-chart widget. You can also view, modify, or delete data definitions, chart properties, widget-level filters, and chart types within a custom widget or a custom template.

About this task

If you use multiple instances of a custom widget within a dashboard, then whenever you modify a single occurrence of the custom widget, all its remaining occurrences within the same dashboard or in any other dashboard remain unchanged.

Procedure

Viewing, deleting, or searching the existing custom widgets, custom templates, or specialized widgets.

  • To view, delete, or search the existing widgets, complete the following steps:
    1. In the left navigation pane of Dashboard Designer, click Custom Widgets > Manage Widgets.

      An All Widgets page opens in a new tab. The page displays all the already created custom widgets, custom templates, or specialized widgets. Custom widgets, template widgets, and specialized widgets display a chart icon or widget icon next to them. However, for a template widget, the chart icon is displayed within curly brackets.

    2. Complete any of the following steps:
      • To view widgets or templates that belong to a category, from the View list, select a category.
      • To find a widget or a template, enter the name of the widget or template in the Search field.
      • To delete a widget or a template, either select a widget or a template, and click the Delete button, or click the Delete Delete icon on the widget or template row.
      • To delete multiple widgets and templates, select the widgets and templates that you want to delete, and then click the Delete button.
      • To create a copy of a widget or a template, click the Copy Copy icon icon on the widget or template row. In the Create Copy window, complete the following steps:
        • In the Name field, enter a unique name for the widget or the template. You can use alphanumeric characters, spaces, and underscore in the dashboard name.
        • To save the widget or the template to an existing category, click Existing Category, and select a category from the list.
        • To save the widget or the template to a new category, click New Category, and enter a name for the new category.
        To save the widget or template copy, click Save.

Modifying widgets, and replacing or deleting charts and widgets in custom widgets and specialized widgets.

  • To modify a widget, complete the following steps:
    1. In the All Widgets page, click the View/Edit View or edit icon that is displayed on the widget row.

      The widget opens in a new tab. The page displays the widget name, widget title, and a chart.

    2. The Show Gridlines checkbox is selected by default. If you do not want gridlines view, clear the checkbox.
    3. To modify name, title, or description of a widget or to modify title of a child-widget within a multi-chart widget, click the Edit Edit icons that are displayed next to the respective fields, and make the required changes.
    4. For Bar, Time Series, and Pie chart categories, you can replace the selected chart with another chart that belongs to the same category. Click the Change Chart Type Change chart type icon and select the required chart type from the available options.
      The existing chart is replaced with the selected chart type without any changes to the data definitions or chart properties.
      Note:
      • If you set multiple plots in the chart, you cannot change a chart type.
      • Change chart type is not supported for Grid, Badge, and Complex Gauge charts.
      • All the remaining charts can be changed to Grid chart only, except Bubble chart. A Bubble chart can also be changed to a Scatter chart.
      • Only if numeric data is displayed on X-axis and Y-axis, then a Bubble chart can be changed to Scatter chart. Else, it can be changed to a Grid chart only.
    5. To add or delete widget-level filters, click Set Filters icon, and complete any of the following steps:
      • To remove a widget-level filter, in the Selected Filters pane, click Remove icon that is displayed next to the filter.
        Note: If you remove a parent filter, then its child-filters are also removed.
      • To add more widget-level filters to a widget, in the Available Filters pane, expand filters under Default or Custom, and select the checkbox that is displayed next to required filter.
        • For the widget-level filters to work properly, you must map metrics to filters, when you set data definition or in custom data definition.

          For more information about mapping metrics to filters or setting and adding cases for the query or REST API methods, Creating a custom data definition.

        • You can select maximum five widget-level filters. This number includes default and custom filters, including conditional or dependent filters.
      • To rearrange widget-level filters in the Selected Filters pane, drag the filter to the required position.
        Note: Parent-child filters cannot be switched. A parent filter always precedes its child filter.
      Note: If you modify a filter that is already assigned to a widget, then those filter modifications are not displayed on the widget, unless you reassign the newly modified filter to the widget.
    6. To view the data definitions that are used in the widget, click Set Data Definition icon. The Set Data Definition window displays any of the following details based on the number and types of connectors that are used in the widget:
      • If custom data definition queries are used, then the Set Data Definition window displays a table that shows all the available data definition queries and the selected data definition queries.
      • If a single connector is used, then the Set Data Definition window displays the connector type, data source, monitoring parameters, and instances.
      • If multiple connectors are used, then the Set Data Definition window displays a table that shows all the connectors and connector sources. To view the details of a connector type, its data sources, monitoring parameters, and instances, click the View View icon that is displayed on the connector row. To go back to the main window that displays all the connectors, click View All Data Definition.
    7. To add, delete, or modify data definitions, see Creating a custom data definition.
    8. To modify chart properties, see Setting chart properties.
    9. To delete a chart along with its chart properties and data definitions or to delete a specialized widget, click the Delete Delete icon that is displayed on the All Widgets page.
    10. To preview a widget, click the Preview Preview icon that is displayed on the widget page.
      Note: You cannot modify a widget template nor can you preview a template. However, you can use a template to create a new template or a widget.
    11. To save the changes, click Save.
      Note: You cannot modify an existing widget and save it as a template. You can save a widget as a template only when you create a widget for the first time.

Using an existing template to create a new widget or a new template.

  • To use an existing template to create a new widget or a new template, complete the following steps:
    1. In the All Widgets page, click the View/Edit View or edit icon that is displayed on the template row.

      The template opens in a new tab.

    2. Click Use this Template.

      The template opens in a New Widget tab.

    3. Modify the widget by completing the steps that are provided in the Modifying a widget or deleting an existing chart within a widget section.
    4. You can save the modified template as a new widget or as a new template or as both a new widget and a new template.

Viewing JSON source of any widget or a template.

  • To view JSON source of a widget or a template, complete the following steps:
    1. In the All Widgets page, click the View/Edit View or edit icon that is displayed on the widget or template row.

      The widget or template opens in a new tab.

    2. Click the View Source View source icon.

Viewing or searching the existing widgets or templates by using View All Custom Widgets option.

  • To view or search the existing widgets or templates, complete the following steps:
    1. In the left navigation pane of Dashboard Designer, click Custom Widgets > View All Custom Widgets.

      A Custom Widgets pop-up window is displayed.

    2. Complete any of the following steps:
      • To view widgets or templates that belong to a category, from the All Categories list, select a category.
      • To find a widget or a template, enter the name of the widget or template in the Search field.

Modifying layout of a multi-chart widget to add more widget placeholders or delete existing widgets.

  • To modify the layout of a multi-chart widget, complete the following steps:
    1. In the multi-chart widget, click the Add/Edit Layout Add/Edit Layout icon.
      The widget displays a toolbar that shows Undo Undo icon, Redo Redo icon, Delete Delete icon, and Reset Reset icon icons.
    2. To resize a widget within the multi-chart widget, click the widget and drag the widget points in or out.
    3. To move the widget to a blank area within the multi-chart widget, click the widget and drag it to the blank area.
    4. To delete any of the existing widgets or any of the newly added widget placeholders, click the widget or placeholder, and then click the Delete Delete icon icon on the toolbar.
    5. To undo or redo your changes, click the Undo Undo icon icon or the Redo Redo icon icon.
    6. To delete all the existing widgets and all the newly created placeholders, click the Reset Reset icon icon.
      Note: After you click the Reset Reset icon icon, you cannot undo or redo your changes. The entire host widget is cleared.
    7. To go back to the dashboard design view, click Back to dashboard design view icon.

Modifying the URL within a web widget