Creating Dashboards
Dashboards contain widgets, which are based on searches of repositories and views, as well as notes. From a dashboard, you can create various types of widgets, filter data, or use parameters to drill down to more specific results.
There are two ways to create a dashboard: you can create one from the Dashboards screen; or you can start by creating a widget and a new dashboard at the same time. The first method is described in the section immediately below, the other in the section after it. Whichever method you use, though, you’ll need to have the Administer Dashboards permission for the repository or view to be able to create dashboards associated with them.
An Empty Dashboard
Dashboards are associated with a repository or view. So when you first log into Humio with the User Interface, from the main page, you will need to select a Repository or a View to start. To understand better which page we mean, see the screenshot shown in Figure 1 here.
Once you select a repository or view, you’ll typically be taken to the Search screen. Although there is a way to create a dashboard from this page, which we’ll discuss in the next section, we’ll focus for now on the simplest way to create a dashboard. To do this, switch to the Dashboards screen by clicking on the Dashboards tab on the dark purple band at the top. The screen will then look something like what you see in Figure 2 here.
On the Dashboards page, you will see a list of dashboards that you’ve already created. You can click on one of them to view that dashboard or to edit it. To create a dashboard, though, you would click on the + New Dashbaord button at the top right (see Figure 2). When you do so, a dialog box, like the one in Figure 3, will appear to start the process of creating a dashboard.
There are a few choices as to how to create a dashboard. The simplest and easiest way is to create an Empty Dashboard with no widgets and not based on any other elements or factors — other than it’s associated with current repository or view. This is the default choice, as you see in Figure 3. Just enter the name of the dashboard and click, Create Dashboard. This will close the box and you’ll then see the name of the dashboard in the list of dashboards, like the one you see in Figure 2 under the General section.
To open the new dashboard, click on its name. However, there’s not much to see or do there with a blank dashboard. It won’t be useful until you add widgets to it. To add widgets to a dashboard, you would go to the Search page, execute a query and then save that query as a widget, associating it in the dashboard.
dashboards-ui.md
Duplicating a Dashboard
If you already have other dashboards, you can create a new one based on one of those by choosing Clone Existing dashboard. The dialog box will adjust to look like what you see in Figure 4.
Notice that when creating a dashboard based on an existing one, you can draw from dashboards you might have in other repositories or views. You just choose the repository or view, then the dashboard to copy.
Your other choices when creating a new dashboard is to use a dashboard template. Creating and using dashboard templates is covered elsewhere in this section of the Documentation. Similarly, would be to call upon dashboard templates that are part of Humio Packages. This feature is new and still in beta mode. It’s covered in the Packages documentation section.
Priming a Dashboard
Run a query on the search page
timechart(hostname)
This will automatically select the Time Chart widget type, and you can style the widget by clicking Style on the left side of the screen.
Click Save as… and select Dashboard Widget.
This will bring up a dialog asking which dashboard to add the widget. You also have the option of creating a new dashboard that the current widget will be included in. It is important to note that the active search interval used on the search page is saved along with the widget and will be the on dashboard.
