Dashboard Authoring

Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance (formerly Skylight performance analytics) exposes many arrangement and filtering options for end users to make transient changes to dashboards, but the only way to make those changes permanent is through author mode.

Accounts with User and Admin privilege level are able to create dashboards from scratch, and edit existing dashboards where the owner has extend edit or manage privileges to a user group they belong to. If that sounds complicated, check out the following articles:

• User Management
• User Group Management
• Dashboard Sharing

Creating a new Dashboard from scratch

Use the +Create button in the Dashboard navigation pane, pick a title, optionally specify a dashboard group to put it in and you're ready to author!

Components of a dashboard

There are a few notable components to dashboards that you should be aware of:

1. Sections - A horizontal container for cards that can be collapsed and filtered individually (more on sections here)
2. Cards - A more flexible container for content that can be resized to suit, and also filtered individually and link to other dashboards
3. Widgets - The visual representation of the content. There are many types of widgets to fit any purpose. Multiple widgets can be provisioned on a card.

Authoring a dashboard

Authoring a dashboard is simple:

1. Add card
2. Select a widget type
3. Select a metric(s)
4. Provide any other widget specific options

Once you've got the handle on adding cards, start playing with sections, multi-widget cards and card arrangement to make it beautiful and usable.

/!\ Words of Caution /!\

• Saving a dashboard is permanent - there is no rollback option.
• Be careful when you edit your dashboard while you are also investigating an incident using filters, as any filters present at time of the dashboard being saved will become persisted.