Building Dashboards, Widgets, Charts, and Graphs

LogScale provides users with a series of tools that help visualize the data and garner insights, including dashboards, widgets, charts, and graphs.

Dashboards and Widgets

LogScale dashboards are built to provide users with a way to provide insights and real-time visualization of log data. They are built to work interdependently with widgets, which users should think of as individual components that can be "plugged in" and used to perform organization and display functions for data as it's aggregated. Each widget type serves a different purpose, and can be customized to fit the needs of the user and their data- each widget is representative of a query, the result being the visualization the user sees when implementing the widget as part of the dashboard. Multiple dashboards can be created to monitor different aspects of a user's systems. Concepts that users often account for when constructing dashboards are monitoring system health and security threats, frequently used searches, and viewing server activities in various formats and tables.

For more information, see the documentation here: Dashboards Widgets

Bar and Pie Charts

The way a user chooses to display data insights is dependent on the data itself, and both bar and pie charts have specific considerations for when to utilize them. Bar charts are good at grouping data together for comparison across a concept or time, like quantities across categories or changes over time. Pie charts are best used for showing the relationships between two or more data points, and can display the results of a single field at a time. While each has capability to on some level perform the function(s) of the other, each has their known strengths and advantages.

Bar Charts

There are two types of bar chart:

  • Single series - Displays one data series with individual bars representing single values.

  • Multiple series - Displays one or more metrics per category, or one metric broken down by two dimensions.

For pie charts, there is only one type of data arrangement.

For more information, see the documentation here: Bar Chart Usage and Data Format Pie Chart Widget

Graphs Over Time

LogScale provides multiple ways to display data in relation to time, depending on the data and the users need.

Shared Time Selector

The Shared Time Selector allows users to set a time range for all widgets on a dashboard to establish consistency. This also provides an easy way to adjust the time for all widgets at once, and when using the toggle feature gives the ability to switch between unified time and individual time, something that is helpful for times when that metric matters to data analysis.

For more information, see the documentation here: Shared Time Selector

Widget Time Selector

The Widget Time Selector feature allows for detailed comparative analysis across different time periods by enabling specific time ranges for individual dashboard widgets. You can customize the temporal display of each widget independently by un-toggling the "Shared time" button. This capability facilitates the analysis and comparison of data from various timeframes within a single dashboard view.

This feature allows for:

  • Individual control - customize the time range for each widget on the fly.

  • Specific analysis - useful for comparing data from different time periods within the same dashboard.

For more information, see the documentation here: Widget Time Selector

Section Time Selector

The Section Time Selector simplifies dashboard management by allowing you to set a single time range for all widgets within a specific section. This feature is enabled via the Section configuration panel and, by default, functions independently of the global time selection. However, when the Shared Time mode is active, all widgets will instead adhere to the global time setting.

For more information, see the documentation here: Section Time Selector

Live Dashboards

To control whether widget queries are executed as live or static queries, users should implement the ‘Live' checkbox. When checked, a user's dashboard will continuously update with real-time data- this is recommended when dashboards are in use for monitoring purposes. If left unchecked, the data displayed as part of the dashboard will remain static and reflect the state of the data at the time the query was completed. Because this is well-suited for historical data, this mode is recommended for investigating past events.

It's important to note that this widget has some considerations for its use:

  • When a widget's time range is using time anchoring, live queries are not supported.

  • If a widget is using unsupported query functions or if it has limited functionality.

For more information, see the documentation here: Live Dashboards

Time Zone Settings

The ability to set the time zone using the Time Zone selector allows users to set the time zone for all widgets on a given dashboard, whereas typically dashboards use the time zone set in the account's General Settings. By selecting a different time zone, LogScale can interpret calendar-based time selections like specific dates and times differently, and format timestamp fields displayed on widgets.

For more information, see the documentation here: Work with Time on Dashboards

Sharing Dashboards via PDF

LogScale is capable of exporting dashboards as PDF files for various purposes including archiving, distribution, and printing, and supports both list and grid options.

  • The List option creates a page with one widget per row, and is suitable for event lists and tables.

  • The Grid option creates a landscape page and mirrors the dashboard's widget layout. It's recommended for dashboards with multiple charts, making it ideal for conveying a range of information on a single page.

PDF snapshots will also capture the current state of the dashboard, including time ranges and parameters. Users can also automate the distribution of the PDFs using the Schedule PDF Reports functionality, which allows for formatted dashboard reports and automatic emails to be sent to pre-selected recipients based on customizable time intervals. Like exporting, the reports have the same formatting capabilities, and can be set to any frequency level, whether hours or days, starting at 1 hour. For example, users can set a daily report to be sent for a period of two weeks.

Note

Using scheduled reports in self-hosted environments requires use of an external auxiliary node to create the PDF reports, and requires a specific configuration variable.

For more information on deploying on an auxiliary PDF service, see the documentation here: PDF Render Service Adding PDF Render to LogScale Configuration

For more information, see the documentation here: Export Dashboards as PDF Schedule PDF Reports