Modifying dashboard settings - Amazon Managed Grafana

Modifying dashboard settings

This documentation topic is designed for Grafana workspaces that support Grafana version 10.x.

For Grafana workspaces that support Grafana version 9.x, see Working in Grafana version 9.

For Grafana workspaces that support Grafana version 8.x, see Working in Grafana version 8.

The dashboard settings page enables you to:

  • Edit general dashboard properties, including time settings.

  • Add annotation queries.

  • Add dashboard variables.

  • Add links.

  • View the dashboard JSON model

To access the dashboard setting page

  1. Open a dashboard in edit mode.

  2. Click Dashboard settings (gear icon) located at the top of the page.

Modifying dashboard time settings

Adjust dashboard time settings when you want to change the dashboard timezone, the local browser time, and specify auto-refresh time intervals.

To modify dashboard time settings

  1. On the Dashboard settings page, select General.

  2. Navigate to the Time Options section.

  3. Specify time settings according to the following descriptions.

    • Timezone – Specify the local time zone of the service or system that you are monitoring. This can be helpful when monitoring a system or service that operates across several time zones.

      • Default – Grafana uses the default selected time zone for the user profile, team, or organization. If no time zone is specified for the user profile, a team the user is a member of, or the organization, then Grafana uses the local browser time.

      • Local browser time – The time zone configured for the viewing user browser is used. This is usually the same time zone as set on the computer.

      • Use standard ISO 8601 time zones, including UTC.

    • Auto-refresh – Customize the options displayed for relative time and the auto-refresh options. Entries are comma separated and accept any valid time unit.

    • Now delay – Override the now time by entering a time delay. Use this option to accommodate known delays in data aggregation to avoid null values.

    • Hide time picker – Selecting this option if you do not want the dashboard to display the time picker.

Note

To have time controls, your data must include a time column. See the documentation for your specific data source for more information about including a time column.

Adding an annotation query

An annotation query is a query that queries for events. These events can be visualized in graphs across the dashboard as vertical lines along with a small icon you can hover over to see the event information.

To add an annotation query

  1. On the Dashboard settings page, select Annotations.

  2. Select Add annotation query.

  3. Enter a name and select a data source.

  4. Complete the rest of the form to build a query and annotation.

The query editor UI changes based on the data source that you select. see the Data source documentation for details on how to construct a query. Or, for data source plugins that you install from the Find plugins with the plugin catalog, you can use the documentation on the Grafana Labs website.

Adding a variable

Variables enable you to create more interactive and dynamic dashboards. Instead of hard-coding things like server, application, and sensor names in your metric queries, you can use variables in their place. Variables are displayed as dropdown lists at the top of the dashboard. These dropdowns make it easy to change the data being displayed in your dashboard.

For more information about variables, see Variables.

To add a variable

  1. On the Dashboard settings page, click Variable in the left side section menu and then the Add variable button.

  2. In the General section, add the name of the variable. This is the name that you will later use in queries.

  3. Select a variable Type.

    Note

    The variable type that you select impacts which fields that you populate on the page.

  4. Define the variable and click Update.

Adding a link

Dashboard links enable you to place links to other dashboards and websites directly below the dashboard header. Links provide for easy navigation to other, related dashboards and content.

To add a link

  1. On the Dashboard settings page, choose Links from the left side section menu and then the Add link button.

  2. Enter a title and in the Type field, select Dashboard or Link.

  3. To add a dashboard link, add an optional tag, select any of the dashboard link Options, and click Apply.

    Note

    Using tags creates a dynamic dropdown of dashboards that all have a specific tag.

  4. To add a web link, add a URL and tooltip text that appears when the user hovers over the link, select an icon that appears next to the link, and select any of the dashboard link options.

View dashboard JSON model

A dashboard in Grafana is represented by a JSON object, which stores the metadata of a dashboard. Dashboard metadata includes dashboard properties, metadata from panels, template variables, panel queries, and so on. The JSON metadata defines the dashboard.

To view a dashboard JSON model, on the Dashboard settings page, click JSON.

For more information about the JSON fields, see JSON fields.