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 the Author mode.

Accounts with User and Admin privilege level can create dashboards from scratch. They can also edit existing dashboards where the owner has granted their user group Edit or Manage privileges. For more information, see the following articles:

• User Management
• User Group Management
• Dashboard Sharing

Creating a New Dashboard From Scratch

To create a new dashboard

1. Click Monitoring in the left sidebar.
   

2. Click + Create.
   A dialog box appears, prompting you to enter a name and select a category for the new dashboard. This helps you easily find and group your dashboards.
   

3. In the dialog box, enter a Name for your dashboard.

4. Select a Category from the dropdown menu.

5. Click the checkmark button to confirm.
   A new blank dashboard has been created and you're now ready to author.
   

Components of a Dashboard

Dashboards comprise several notable components:

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

To author (edit) a dashboard

1. Click Monitoring in the left sidebar.

2. Select the dashboard to edit.
   The dashboard editor appears.

3. Click Author in the upper-right corner.

4. Click + Card.
   

The Card detail pane appears.

5. In the Card details pane, you can:

• Add a Card title
• Select a Section (category) for organization
• Link to other dashboards
• Add a Time interval offset
• Add and use filters, with the option to hide them on the card
• Select specific Widget types for the card you are editing
• Provide any other Widget-specific options, such as adding the required data to the card, which can be either metric or categorical results
• Group the data by category

6. Once your updates have been made, click the Save button located at the top right of the screen.

Note: While in Author mode, you can reposition and resize your cards as needed.

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.