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This page provides an overview of custom dashboards in AppDynamics.

A custom dashboard enables you to display a specific set of metrics and data points on one screen. You can display application, server, and database metrics reported by AppDynamics agents. You can also supplement the AppDynamics built-in dashboards (such as the application dashboard, tier dashboard, and so on) and display metrics that are of interest to a particular audience.

You can use custom dashboards to present selected metrics for a user who only needs a relatively narrow or focused view of the data. For example, an executive may only need a high-level view of system performance and activity. You can assign such users to the predefined Custom Dashboard Viewer role. Any user with a custom dashboard viewer role can view custom dashboards.  

Regardless of application-level or other restrictions configured for that data, a custom dashboard viewer can view all data that the dashboard owner is permitted to view on the controller-level custom dashboards.

Instead of using the Custom Dashboard Viewer role, you can share a custom dashboard.

You can use Controller-level custom dashboards to: 

  • Provide a customized view of application, server, and database performance data.
  • Aggregate data from different applications on the same Controller
  • Compare data from different applications on the same Controller
  • Show a single view of both live and historical data
  • Share data with other users and stakeholders

Create Custom Dashboards

To create a Controller-level custom dashboard, navigate to Dashboards & Reports > Dashboards > Create Dashboard. In the Dashboards panel, click an existing dashboard to edit it.

To create or edit a custom dashboard, a user needs to have the Can Create Custom Dashboards permission. See Visibility and Permissions.

Custom Dashboard Templates

Custom dashboard templates are an efficient way to display the same type of information for multiple tiers or nodes. You create a dashboard in the scope of a tier or node and then use that dashboard as a template to display the same type of data for other tiers or nodes in the same application. Associating the template with a specific tier or node sets the source of the dashboard's data.

To create or edit a custom dashboard template, a user needs to have the Configure 'My Dashboards' for Tiers and Nodes permission.

 Create a custom dashboard template to: 

  • Compare overall application or infrastructure performance against individual tier or node performance
  • Show a standard set of metrics for multiple tiers and nodes

You create and access dashboard templates from the My Dashboards tab of the built-in tier or node dashboard. From there, you can create a new dashboard template for that tier/node or use dashboard templates that were created for other tiers/nodes in the same application by association.

Although the process for configuring Controller-level and tier or node-level dashboard templates is similar, the two sets of dashboards are separate. In other words, you cannot associate a Controller-level dashboard with a tier/node through the My Dashboards tab, nor can you access from the Controller-level dashboards list any tier and node level dashboards outside the application in which they were created.

The dashboard and template names must be unique Controller-wide. You cannot create a custom dashboard using an existing dashboard template name, nor can you create a dashboard template using an existing custom dashboard name.

You can export custom dashboards and dashboard templates to a JSON file and then import them where you need them.

View Strategies

For AppDynamics Users

If you have set up default view permissions to custom dashboards, any user who is logged in to the Controller can view a custom dashboard. 

Users can also be granted view, edit, share, and delete permissions on specific dashboards.

The Dashboards Viewer predefined role has permissions to view custom dashboards. You can grant this role to users or groups who need access to custom dashboards. See Custom Dashboard Permissions for details.

For the Public

Sharing a Controller-level custom dashboard makes the dashboard available to viewers who do not have AppDynamics accounts.

If the dashboard is shared, anyone who has been sent a direct link to the dashboard URL can view it. If someone has the URL and the dashboard is not shared or no longer shared, they see a message that the resource is not available when they try to access that URL.

To control Controller-level custom dashboard sharing, click Share on the menu of the custom dashboard configuration.

There is no comparable sharing mechanism for external viewers without Controller credentials to access tier- and node-level custom dashboards based on templates. To access these types of dashboards, the user must be logged in to the Controller and have custom dashboard view permissions on the specific dashboard.

The availability of sharing mechanism is now controlled by the Share permission of the user.

Simplify the Data Displayed

If a chart in a custom dashboard is displaying more data than you want, click the legend for the data that you want to remove from the chart. You can click the greyed-out legend to restore the display.