Add more panels to dashboards

Earlier in this tutorial you ran searches and saved them as reports. In this section, you add those saved reports to an existing dashboard. You will also add more panels based on ad hoc searches.

Add saved reports to a dashboard

Prerequisite

Ensure that you have the Buttercup Games - Purchases dashboard. This dashboard was created and edited in the previous section of this tutorial, Create dashboards and panels. You must create that dashboard before continuing with this section.

Steps

  1. To display a list of your dashboards, click Dashboards on the Apps bar and select the Buttercup Games - Purchases dashboard.
    This screen image shows the list of Dashboards. There are three dashboards listed on the page. The Buttercup Games - Purchases dashboard is the dashboard that you created. The other dashboards are built-in and provided with the Splunk product.
  2. In the Actions column, click Edit and select Edit Panels. The Edit Dashboard page opens.
  3. Click Add Panel.
    The Add Panel sidebar menu opens on the right side of the window.
    This screen image shows the sidebar for Add Panel. The options are: New, New from Report, Clone from Dashboard, and Add Prebuilt.
  4. To add a new panel from an existing report, click New from Report.
    The list expands to show reports that you created and saved and built-in reports.
    This screen image shows the list of reports.
  5. Select Purchasing trends.
    Next to the Add Panel sidebar, the Preview sidebar appears. The preview includes information about the report, the search that the report is based on, and preview of the report itself. This is the sparkline chart report that you created.
    This screen image shows a preview of the Purchasing trends report.
  6. Click Add to Dashboard.
    The new panel is placed at the bottom of the dashboard.
  7. From the Add Panel sidebar menu, select the report Comparison of Actions and Conversion Rates by Product and add it to the dashboard.
    This screen image shows the Preview panel for the report called "Comparison of Actions and Conversion Rates by Product".
  8. Close the Add Panel sidebar.
  9. Rearrange the panels on the dashboard.
    Drag and drop a panel by the panel drag and drop bar, which is at the top of the panel. When you drag a panel, a four pointed arrow symbol appears on the drag and drop bar.
    This screen image shows the "Comparison of Actions and Conversion Rates by Product" panel being dragged to appear side-by-side next to the "Purchasing trends" panel.
  10. In the Edit Dashboards window, click Save to save your changes to the dashboard.
    Your finished dashboard should look like the following image.
    This screen image shows the Comparison of Actions and Conversion Rates by Product" panel at the top of the dashboard. The other two panels appear side-by-side at the bottom of the dashboard.

Adding a search to an existing dashboard

You can save an ad hoc search as a panel in an existing dashboard.

Prerequisite

This example requires the productName field from the Enabling field lookups section of this tutorial. You must complete all of those steps before continuing with this section. If you do not configure the field lookups, the searches in this section will not produce the correct results.

Let's use that lookup to run the following search.

  1. Click Search in the Apps bar to start a new search.
  2. Make sure that the time range is set to All time.
  3. Run the following search to determine the VIP client and the products that the client purchased. 
    sourcetype=access_* status=200 action=purchase [search sourcetype=access_* status=200 action=purchase | top limit=1 clientip | table clientip] | stats count AS "Total Purchased", dc(productId) AS "Total Products", values(productName) AS "Product Names" BY clientip | rename clientip AS "VIP Customer"

    The following image shows the results of the search.
    This screen image shows the results on the Statistics tab. The first column shows the client IP address. The second column shows that the customer made 134 purchases. The third column shows the names of the products that were purchased. Examples of the product names are: Dream Crusher and Puppies vs. Zombies.

  4. Click Save As and choose Dashboard panel.
  5. For Dashboard, click Existing and select Buttercup Games - Purchases.
  6. For Panel title, type VIP Client Purchases.
  7. Click Save.
  8. Click View Dashboard.
  9. Click Edit.
  10. In the dashboard editor, drag the VIP Client Purchases panel next to the Top Purchases by Category pie chart.
  11. Click Save.
    Your dashboard should look like the following image.
    This screen image shows the dashboard. There is a time range picker at the top left of the dashboard. There are four panels on the dashboard. The two panels at the top are the Top Purchases by Category, which shows a pie chart, and the VIP Client Purchases, which shows a table. The other two panels are the Purchasing trends and Comparison of Actions and Conversion Rates by Product.

Connecting panels to a shared Time Range Picker

The type of panel that you add to a dashboard determines whether you can connect the panel to the shared Time Range Picker.

The Buttercup Games - Purchases dashboard now contains the panels listed in the following table.

Panel name Panel source
Top Purchases by Category Ad hoc search
Purchasing Trends Report
VIP Client Purchases Ad hoc search
Comparison of Actions and Conversion Rates by Product Report

If the panel is based on an ad hoc search, you can connect the panel to the shared Time Range Picker. If the panel is a report, you cannot connect it to the shared Time Range Picker. Reports can be scheduled to run at a set time interval.

To connect the VIP Client Purchases panel to the shared Time Range Picker:

  1. At the top of the dashboard click Edit.
  2. In the VIP Client Purchases dashboard panel, click the Edit Search icon. The icon looks like a magnifying glass.
  3. In the Edit Search dialog box, for Time range select Shared Time Picker (BG_Purchases_Time_Range).
  4. Click Apply.
  5. In the Edit Dashboard window, click Save to save the changes to the dashboard.

The VIP Client Purchases panel is now connected to the Time range picker input on the dashboard.

When you change the time range on the dashboard, the panels that are connected to the shared Time Range Picker are updated. The searches that the panels are based on are run again to refresh the panels.

More dashboard actions

After you create a dashboard, use the buttons in the upper right corner to take actions on the dashboard, such as:

  • Export the dashboard
  • Edit the permissions to share the dashboard with other users

Next step

Congratulations! You have completed the Search Tutorial.

To learn more, see Additional Resources.