Create a dashboard in Azure Managed Grafana

Article
04/12/2024

In this guide, learn how to create a dashboard in Azure Managed Grafana to visualize data from your Azure services.

A Grafana dashboard contains panels and rows. You can import a Grafana dashboard and adapt it to your own scenario, create a new Grafana dashboard, or duplicate an existing dashboard.

Note

The Grafana UI may change periodically. This article shows the Grafana interface and user flow at a given point. Your experience may slightly differ from the examples below at the time of reading this document. If this is the case, refer to the Grafana Labs documentation.

Prerequisites

An Azure account with an active subscription. Create an account for free.
An Azure Managed Grafana instance. If you don't have one yet, create an Azure Managed Grafana instance.
Another existing Azure service instance with monitoring data.

Import a Grafana dashboard

To quickly create a dashboard, import an existing dashboard and add it to your Managed Grafana instance. You can do so by importing a dashboard template from Grafana Labs, uploading a JSON file or pasting JSON code.

Import a dashboard from Grafana Labs

Import a dashboard template from the Grafana Labs website.

From the Grafana Labs website, browse through Grafana dashboards templates and select a dashboard to import.
Select Copy ID to clipboard.
For the next steps, use the Azure portal or the Azure CLI.
- Portal
- Azure CLI
1. In the Azure portal, open your Azure Managed Grafana workspace and select the Endpoint URL.
2. In the Grafana portal, go to Dashboards > Import.
3. Under Import via grafana.com, paste the Grafana dashboard ID copied earlier, and select Load.
4. Optionally update the dashboard name, folder, unique identifier (UID), and other parameters.
5. Select a datasource and select Import.
6. A new dashboard is displayed. Review and edit it if necessary.
Run the az grafana dashboard import command and replace the placeholders <AMG-name>, <AMG-resource-group>, and <dashboard-id> with the name of the Azure Managed Grafana instance, its resource group, and the dashboard ID you copied earlier.
```
az grafana dashboard import --name <AMG-name> --resource-group <AMG-resource-group> --definition <dashboard-id>
```

Import a JSON dashboard

Follow these steps to import a JSON dashboard to Grafana:

Portal
Azure CLI

In the Azure portal, open your Azure Managed Grafana workspace and select the Endpoint URL.
Go to Dashboard > Import use a preferred import option:
- Select Upload JSON file and then Load to import from a JSON file.
- Paste JSON text in the Import via panel json box and select Load to use text from your clipboard.
Optionally update the dashboard name, folder, unique identifier (UID) and other parameters.
Select Import.

Run the az grafana dashboard import command and replace the placeholders <AMG-name>, <AMG-resource-group>, and <local-path-to-file> with the name of the Azure Managed Grafana instance, its resource group, and the path to the JSON File on your local machine, ending with .json.

az grafana dashboard import --name <AMG-name> --resource-group <AMG-resource-group> --definition @<local-path-to-file>

Create a new Grafana dashboard

To create your own new dashboard, follow these steps.

Portal
Azure CLI

In the Azure portal, open your Azure Managed Grafana workspace and select the Endpoint URL.
In the Grafana portal, go to Dashboards > New Dashboard.
Select one of the following options:
- Add a new panel: instantly creates a dashboard from scratch with a first default panel.
- Add a new row: instantly creates a dashboard with a new empty row.
- Add a panel from the panel library: instantly creates a dashboard with an existing reusable panel from another instance you have access to.

Run the az grafana dashboard create command and replace the placeholders <AMG-name>, <AMG-resource-group>, <title>, and <definition> with the name of the Azure Managed Grafana instance, its resource group, a title and a definition for the new dashboard. The definition consists of a dashboard model in JSON string, a path or URL to a file with such content.

az grafana dashboard create --name <AMG-name> --resource-group <AMG-resource-group> --title <title> --definition <definition>

For example:

az grafana dashboard create --name myGrafana --resource-group myResourceGroup --title "My dashboard" --folder folder1 --definition '{
   "dashboard": {
      "annotations": {
         ...
      },
      "panels": {
         ...
      }
   },
   "message": "Create a new test dashboard"
}'

Duplicate a Grafana dashboard

Duplicate a Grafana dashboard using your preferred method.

Portal
Azure CLI

To copy a Grafana dashboard:

Open an existing dashboard in your Grafana instance.
Select Dashboard settings.
Select Save as.
Enter a new name and/or a new folder and select Save.

Run the az grafana dashboard show command to show the definition of the dashboard you want to duplicate, and copy the output.
```
az grafana dashboard show --name <AMG-name> --resource-group <AMG-resource-group> --dashboard <dashboard-UID>
```

Run the az grafana dashboard create command and replace the placeholders <AMG-name>, <AMG-resource-group>, <title>, and <dashboard-id> with your own information. Replace <definition> with the output you copied in the previous step, and remove the uidand id.

az grafana dashboard create --name <AMG-name> --resource-group <AMG-resource-group> --title <title>--definition <definition>

For example:

az grafana dashboard create --name myGrafana --resource-group myResourceGroup --title "My dashboard" --folder folder1 --definition '{
   "dashboard": {
      "annotations": {
         ...
      },
      "panels": {
         ...
      }
   },
   "message": "Create a new test dashboard"
}'

Edit a dashboard panel

Edit a Grafana dashboard panel using your preferred method.

Portal
Azure CLI

To update a Grafana panel, follow the steps below.

Review the panel to check if you're satisfied with it or want to make some edits.
In the lower part of the page:
1. Query tab:
  1. Review the selected data source. If necessary, select the drop-down list to use another data source.
  2. Update the query. Each data source has a specific query editor that provides different features and capabilities for that type of data source.
  3. Select + Query or + Expression to add a new query or expression.
1. Transform tab: filter data or queries, and organize or combine data before the data is visualized.
2. Alert tab: set alert rules and notifications.
At the top of the page:
1. Toggle Table view to display data as a table.
2. Switch between Fill and Actual to edit panel size.
3. Select the time icon to update the time range.
4. Select the visualization drop-down menu to choose a visualization type that best supports your use case. Go to visualization for more information.
On the right hand side, select the Panel options icon to review and update various panel options.

Run the az grafana dashboard update command and update the Grafana dashboard definition.

az grafana dashboard update --name <AMG-name> --resource-group <AMG-resource-group> --definition <definition>

Next steps

In this how-to guide, you learned how to create a Grafana dashboard. To learn share this dashboard with internal and external stakeholders, go to:

Share a dashboard or panel

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