Create and manage dashboards

You can monitor both your metric and span data by adding charts to unified dashboards based on queries to your telemetry data. Dashboards can contain any number of charts. Once created, you can apply global filters and change the reporting time period. You can also drag and drop the charts to rearrange the dashboard.

Using Terraform? You can use the Lightstep Terraform provider to create and manage your dashboards and charts. You can also use it to export existing dashboards into the Terraform format.

Create a dashboard

Dashboards are accessed from the Dashboard view.

1. From the navigation bar, click Dashboards.
   The view shows all dashboards for your project.

   

2. Click Create a dashboard.

   A new blank dashboard displays.

3. Click in the title to rename your dashboard.

You’re now ready to add charts to the dashboard.

You can also add a chart to the dashboard from the Service Directory view.

Edit a dashboard

You can apply filters and global time periods to all the charts. You can also clone and delete dashboards and charts, rearrange charts, and share the dashboard with other Lightstep Observability users.

Apply global filters

You can change the data reported on in the dashboard by applying global filters based on available attributes (tags/labels from your metrics and spans. For example, say you have these charts in your dashboard.

You hear that the customer PackingKings is experiencing issues accessing your app. You can filter the charts to show just data from that customer.

Global filters only affect your view - they are not persisted.

To add global filters, click the Apply filters button and choose the attributes for your filter. You can select from the list or type in a key/value pair.

When adding multiple filters, Lightstep narrows down your choices based on attributes available after the previous filter. Multiple selections use AND to join filters.

Global filters and span charts

When you add a global filter, you’re changing the query for each chart on the dashboard. If a chart is using a Stream to retain a span query and you apply a global filter, it’s considered a new query that is not retained (you will only see data currently in the retention window). If you add a chart with a Stream’s retained query to a dashboard that uses global filters, the query is retained as a Stream without those filters applied.

Change the reporting time range

By default, the data shown is from the last hour. You can change that to a different time range using the dropdown. Use the < > controls to move backwards and forwards through time.

Changing the time period only affects your view - the change isn’t persisted.

Data may not be available for the time range you select, based on the type of data and your data retention policy.

Share a dashboard

Lightstep creates a short link that you can use to share a dashboard. Any filters or time ranges applied to the dashboard are maintained when the other person visits the link. Click the Share icon and copy the URL.

Clone a dashboard

You can clone an entire dashboard by clicking the More ( ⋮ ) icon and selecting Clone.

Cloned dashboards do not copy over the global filters and they reset to the default time period of the last 60 minutes.

Change the name and click Clone.

You can also clone a dashboard from the Dashboard List view.

Clone a chart on a dashboard

You can clone an individual chart on a dashboard by clicking the More ( ⋮ ) icon on the chart and selecting Clone.

Cloned charts use any global filters and the time period set for the dashboard.

Change the name and click Clone.

Rearrange charts on a dashboard

You can move charts added to a dashboard by dragging and dropping them. Hover over a chart title. When the cursor turns into a hand, drag and drop the chart into its desired location.

Delete a chart from a dashboard

Hover over a chart and use the More ( ⋮ ) icon to delete it from the dashboard.

Deleting a chart from a dashboard deletes it from everyone’s view of the dashboard.

Delete a dashboard

You can delete a dashboard from either the dashboard itself or from the Dashboard list. Deleting a dashboard also deletes all charts created for it.

To delete it from the dashboard, use the More ( ⋮ ) icon and select Delete.

To delete it from the list view, use the More ( ⋮ ) icon for the dashboard and select Delete.

View a single chart

To get a better look at a chart on a dashboard, you can enlarge it. Hover over the chart and click the Enlarge icon.

The chart opens in the editing view with the query builder collapsed. You can open it to edit the query.

If the chart contains multiple queries or queries and a formula, you can toggle their display on and off.

The toggle selection is not persisted to the dashboard.

Manage dashboards

You manage all your dashboards from the Dashboard view. By default, dashboards are listed in alphabetical order.

Sorting and dashboard favorites are saved only for a user. Other users will not see your sort or favorites.

Sort dashboards

You can sort the dashboards by any column.

Search for a dashboard

Use the Search field to find a dashboard. You can search by name, date, type, or creator’s name.

Favorite a dashboard

You can favorite a dashboard so that it always appears at the top of the dashboard list. Click the star on the left.

Investigate an issue

When you notice an issue on the dashboard, you can start your investigation by adding the chart showing the issue to a notebook. For metric charts, you can use Change Intelligence to determine the cause for a change. For span charts, you can enlarge the chart to view exemplar spans and traces.