# Getting started with CloudWatch automatic dashboards
The CloudWatch home page automatically displays metrics about every AWS service you use. You can additionally create custom dashboards to display metrics about your custom applications, and display custom collections of metrics that you choose.
Open the CloudWatch console at [https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/](https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/).
The CloudWatch overview home page appears.
![\[An example of a CloudWatch overview home page, showing alarms and their current state, and examples of other metrics graph widgets that might appear on the overview home page.\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/monitoring/images/CW-default-dashboard-update.png)
The overview displays the following items, refreshed automatically.
+ **Alarms by AWS service** displays a list of AWS services you use in your account, along with the state of alarms in those services. Next to that, two or four alarms in your account are displayed. The number depends on how many AWS services you use. The alarms shown are those in the ALARM state or those that most recently changed state.
These upper areas help you quickly assess the health of your AWS services, by seeing the alarm states in every service and the alarms that most recently changed state. This helps you monitor and quickly diagnose issues.
+ Below these areas is the *default dashboard*, if one exists. The default dashboard is a custom dashboard that you have created and named **CloudWatch-Default**. This is a convenient way for you to add metrics about your own custom services or applications to the overview page, or to bring forward additional key metrics from AWS services that you most want to monitor.
**Note**
The automatic dashboards on the CloudWatch home page display only information from the current account, even if the account is a monitoring account set up for CloudWatch cross-account observability. For information about creating custom cross-account dashboards, see [Creating a CloudWatch cross-account cross-Region dashboard with the AWS Management Console](create_xaxr_dashboard.md).
From this overview, you can see a cross-service dashboard of metrics from multiple AWS service, or focus your view to a specific resource group or a specific AWS service. This enables you to narrow your view to a subset of resources in which you are interested.
**Topics**
+ [
# Viewing the cross-service CloudWatch dashboard
](CloudWatch_Automatic_Dashboards_Cross_Service.md)
+ [
# Removing a service from appearing in the CloudWatch cross-service dashboard
](Remove_service_from_Cross_Service_Dashboard.md)
+ [
# Viewing a CloudWatch dashboard for a single AWS service
](CloudWatch_Automatic_Dashboards_Focus_Service.md)
+ [
# Viewing a CloudWatch dashboard for a resource group
](CloudWatch_Automatic_Dashboards_Resource_Group.md)
# Viewing the cross-service CloudWatch dashboard
You can switch to the Cross-service dashboard screen and interact with dashboards for all of the AWS services that you're using. The CloudWatch Console displays your dashboards in alphabetical order and displays one or two key metrics from each service.
**Note**
If you're using five or more AWS services, the CloudWatch Console won't display the Cross-service dashboard on the Overview screen.
**To view the Cross-service dashboard**
1. Open the CloudWatch console at [https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/](https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/).
You're directed to the Overview screen.
1. From the Overview screen, select the dropdown that reads **Overview**, and then choose **Cross service dashboard**.
You're directed to the Cross service dashboard screen.
1. (Optional) If you're using the original interface, scroll to the section **Cross-service dashboard**, and then choose **View Cross-service dashboard**.
You're directed to the Cross-service dashboard screen.
1. You can focus on a particular service in two ways:
1. To see more key metrics for a service, choose its name from the list at the top of the screen, where **Cross service dashboard** is currently shown. Or, you can choose **View *Service* dashboard** next to the service name.
An automatic dashboard for that service is displayed, showing more metrics for that service. Additionally, for some services, the bottom of the service dashboard displays resources related to that service. You can choose one of those resources to that service console and focus further on that resource.
1. To see all the alarms related to a service, choose the button on the right of the screen next to that service name. The text on this button indicates how many alarms you have created in this service, and whether any are in the ALARM state.
When the alarms are displayed, multiple alarms that have similar settings (such as dimensions, threshold, or period) may be shown in a single graph.
You can then view details about an alarm and see the alarm history. To do so, hover on the alarm graph, and choose the actions icon, **View in alarms**.
The alarms view appears in a new browser tab, displaying a list of your alarms, along with details about the chosen alarm. To see the history for this alarm, choose the **History** tab.
1. You can focus on resources in a particular resource group. To do so, choose the resource group from the list at the top of the page where **All resources** is displayed.
For more information, see [Viewing a CloudWatch dashboard for a resource group](CloudWatch_Automatic_Dashboards_Resource_Group.md).
1. To change the time range shown in all graphs and alarms currently displayed, select the range you want next to **Time range** at the top of the screen. Choose **custom** to select from more time range options than those displayed by default.
1. Alarms are always refreshed once a minute. To refresh the view, choose the refresh icon (two curved arrows) at the top right of the screen. To change the automatic refresh rate for items on the screen other than alarms, choose the down arrow next to the refresh icon and choose the refresh rate you want. You can also choose to turn off automatic refresh.
# Removing a service from appearing in the CloudWatch cross-service dashboard
You can prevent a service's metrics from appearing in the cross-service dashboard. This helps you focus your cross-service dashboard on the services you most want to monitor.
If you remove a service from the cross-service dashboard, the alarms for that service still appear in the views of your alarms.
**To remove a service's metrics from the cross-service dashboard**
1. Open the CloudWatch console at [https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/](https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/).
The home page appears.
1. At the top of the page, under **Overview**, choose the service you want to remove.
The view changes to show metrics from only that service.
1. Choose **Actions**, then clear the check box next to **Show on cross service dashboard**.
# Viewing a CloudWatch dashboard for a single AWS service
On the CloudWatch home page, you can focus the view to a single AWS service. You can drill down further by focusing on both a single AWS service and a resource group at the same time. The following procedure shows only how to focus on an AWS service.
**To focus on a single service**
1. Open the CloudWatch console at [https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/](https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/).
The home page appears.
1. For **Overview**, where **Overview** is currently shown in the drop down menu, choose **Service dashboards**.
1. Choose the service that you want to focus on.
The view changes to display graphs of key metrics from the selected service.
1. To switch to viewing the alarms for this service, select the check box for **In alarm**, **Insufficient data**, or **OK** near the top of the screen where the service name is currently displayed.
1. When viewing metrics, you can focus on a particular metric in several ways:
1. To see more details about the metrics in any graph, hover on the graph, and choose the actions icon, **View in metrics**.
The graph appears in a new tab, with the relevant metrics listed below the graph. You can customize your view of this graph, changing the metrics and resources shown, the statistic, the period, and other factors to get a better understanding of the current situation.
1. You can view log events from the time range shown in the graph. This may help you discover events that happened in your infrastructure that are causing an unexpected change in your metrics.
To see the log events, hover on the graph, and choose the actions icon, **View in logs**.
The CloudWatch Logs view appears in a new tab, displaying a list of your log groups. To see the log events in one of these log groups that occurred during the time range shown in the original graph, choose that log group.
1. When viewing alarms, you can focus on a particular alarm in several ways:
1. To see more details about an alarm, hover on the alarm, and choose the actions icon, **View in alarms**.
The alarms view appears in a new tab, displaying a list of your alarms, along with details about the chosen alarm. To see the history for this alarm, choose the **History** tab.
1. Alarms are always refreshed one time per minute. To refresh the view, choose the refresh icon (two curved arrows) at the top right of the screen. To change the automatic refresh rate for items on the screen other than alarms, choose the down arrow next to the refresh icon and choose a refresh rate. You can also choose to turn off automatic refresh.
1. To change the time range shown in all graphs and alarms currently displayed, next to **Time range** at the top of the screen, choose the range. To select from more time range options than those displayed by default, choose **custom**.
1. To return to the cross-service dashboard, choose **Overview** in the list at the top of the screen that currently shows the service you are focusing on.
Alternatively, from any view, you can choose **CloudWatch** at the top of the screen to clear all filters and return to the overview page.
# Viewing a CloudWatch dashboard for a resource group
You can focus your view to display metrics and alarms from a single resource group. Using resource groups enables you to use tags to organize projects, focus on a subset of your architecture, or distinguish between your production and development environments. They also enable you to focus on each of these resource groups on the CloudWatch overview. For more information, see [What Is AWS Resource Groups?](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ARG/latest/userguide/welcome.html).
When you focus on a resource group, the display changes to show only the services where you have tagged resources as part of this resource group. The recent alarms area shows only the alarms that are associated with resources that are part of the resource group. Additionally, if you have created a dashboard with the name **CloudWatch-Default-*ResourceGroupName***, it is displayed in the **Default dashboard** area.
You can drill down further by focusing on both a single AWS service and a resource group at the same time. The following procedure shows just how to focus on a resource group.
**To focus on a single resource group**
1. Open the CloudWatch console at [https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/](https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/).
1. At the top of the page, where **All resources** is displayed, choose a resource group.
1. To see more metrics related to this resource group, near the bottom of the screen, choose **View cross service dashboard**.
The cross-service dashboard appears, showing only the services related to this resource group. For each service, one or two key metrics are displayed.
1. To change the time range shown in all graphs and alarms currently displayed, for **Time range** at the top of the screen, select a range. To select from more time range options than those displayed by default, choose **custom**.
1. Alarms are always refreshed one time per minute. To refresh the view, choose the refresh icon (two curved arrows) at the top right of the screen. To change the automatic refresh rate for items on the screen other than alarms, choose the down arrow next to the refresh icon and choose a refresh rate. You can also choose to turn off automatic refresh.
1. To return to showing information about all the resources in your account, near the top of the screen where the name of the resource group is currently displayed, choose **All resources**.