Widgets
In the context of ThousandEyes dashboards, widgets are visual elements that represent specific types of data or metrics. Widgets can represent data from alerts, agents, and tests. They provide a dynamic and interactive way to present information relevant to your monitoring and testing needs. The following are some common types of widgets that you might encounter when expanding or customizing a dashboard:
Widget Type: Live Status
Agent Status: Offers a live look at the status of your Enterprise or Endpoint Agents to give you an idea of overall agent health.
Tests: A 12-hour, live display of a list of tests configured in your account group for a one-stop glance at high-level test health. Grayed-out rows show disabled tests.
Alert List: Provides a look at the alerts that were active during the configured time interval.
Widget Type: Breakdown
Stacked Bar: Provides horizontal histogram bars with multiple values, useful for composite metric data and for comparing values between multiple tests or on a per-country basis.
Grouped Bar: Represents multiple values as single bars in a group of bars, oriented either horizontally or vertically.
Pie: Similar to Stacked Bar chart widgets, representing data in a circular statistical graphic. It is used to illustrate numerical proportions, which makes it easier to understand the distribution of the selected metric.
Widget Type: Data Summary
Table: Allows a breakdown of numbers by rows and columns, listing by test, country, continent, or data source.
Multi-Metric Table: Can have columns with different metrics, displaying more varied information.
Number: Displays one or more cards, each showing a single scalar quantity or a number of alerts.
Color Grid: Displays an array of colored cards, where each card’s color depends on the configured color scale.
Widget Type: Time Series
Line: This widget displays data using a line plot, where time is represented on the horizontal axis and the selected metric or quantity is shown on the vertical axis. This type of visualization is particularly useful for observing trends and patterns over a specified time period.
Stacked Area: Line plots showing quantities over time, similar to stacked bar charts but representing values over time.
Box and Whiskers: Plots data values versus time on the horizontal axis, with the vertical axis displaying the median, minimum, and maximum data points per time value.
Widget Type: Maps
Map: Displays data on a world map based on the location of testing systems, with options to show data per country, continent, or per agent. This allows the user to quickly determine whether a specific region is experiencing issues.
These widgets offer a versatile set of tools to visualize and analyze data from different perspectives, catering to various monitoring needs. To access the widgets described in the previous list, from the dashboard, click Add Widget to see all the widgets (see Figure 5-6).
)
Figure 5.6 Widgets
Adding widgets to a built-in dashboard is a common practice to tailor the display according to specific needs. The purpose of each widget is to provide a clear visualization of different data metrics. In the next section, we delve into the process of creating a new dashboard, offering you the flexibility to curate your own visualizations based on the available widgets.