---
title: TSVB
description: TSVB is a set of visualization types that you configure and display on dashboards. With TSVB, you can: Combine an infinite number of aggregations to display...
url: https://www.elastic.co/docs/explore-analyze/visualize/legacy-editors/tsvb
applies_to:
  - Elastic Cloud Serverless: Generally available
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
---

# TSVB
**TSVB** is a set of visualization types that you configure and display on dashboards.
With **TSVB**, you can:
- Combine an infinite number of [aggregations](/docs/explore-analyze/visualize/supported-chart-types#aggregation-reference) to display your data.
- Annotate time series data with timestamped events from an Elasticsearch index.
- View the data in several types of visualizations, including charts, data tables, and markdown panels.
- Display multiple [data views](https://www.elastic.co/docs/explore-analyze/find-and-organize/data-views) in each visualization.
- Use custom functions and some math on aggregations.
- Customize the data with labels and colors.

![TSVB overview](https://www.elastic.co/docs/explore-analyze/images/kibana-tsvb-screenshot.png)


## Open and set up TSVB

Open **TSVB**, then configure the required settings. You can create **TSVB** visualizations with only data views, or Elasticsearch index strings.
When you use only data views, you are able to:
- Create visualizations with runtime fields
- Add URL drilldowns
- Add interactive filters for time series visualizations
- Improve performance

<important>
  Creating **TSVB** visualizations with an Elasticsearch index string is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. By default, you create **TSVB** visualizations with only data views. To use an Elasticsearch index string, contact your administrator, or go to [Advanced Settings](https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/kibana/advanced-settings) and set `metrics:allowStringIndices` to `true`.
</important>

1. On the dashboard, click **Select type**, then select **TSVB**.
2. In **TSVB**, click **Panel options**, then specify the **Data** settings.
3. Open the **Data view mode** options next to the **Data view** dropdown.
4. Select **Use only Kibana data views**.
5. From the **Data view** dropdown, select the data view, then select the **Time field** and **Interval**.
6. Select a **Drop last bucket** option.
   By default, **TSVB** drops the last bucket because the time filter intersects the time range of the last bucket. To view the partial data, select **No**.
7. To view a filtered set of documents, enter [KQL filters](https://www.elastic.co/docs/explore-analyze/query-filter/languages/kql) in the **Panel filter** field.


## Configure the series

Each **TSVB** visualization shares the same options to create a **Series**. Each series can be thought of as a separate Elasticsearch aggregation. The **Options** control the styling and Elasticsearch options, and are inherited from **Panel options**. When you have separate options for each series, you can compare different Elasticsearch indices, and view two time ranges from the same index.
To configure the value of each series, select the function, then configure the function inputs. Only the last function is displayed.
1. From the **Aggregation** dropdown, select the function for the series. **TSVB** provides you with shortcuts for some frequently-used functions:
   <definitions>
   <definition term="Filter Ratio">
   Returns a percent value by calculating a metric on two sets of documents. For example, calculate the error rate as a percentage of the overall events over time.
   </definition>
   <definition term="Counter Rate">
   Used when dealing with monotonically increasing counters. Shortcut for **Max**, **Derivative**, and **Positive Only**.
   </definition>
   <definition term="Positive Only">
   Removes any negative values from the results, which can be used as a post-processing step after a derivative.
   </definition>
   <definition term="Series Agg">
   Applies a function to all of the **Group by** series to reduce the values to a single number. This function must always be the last metric in the series. For example, if the **Time Series** visualization shows 10 series, the sum **Series Agg** calculates the sum of all 10 bars and outputs a single Y value per X value. This is often confused with the overall sum function, which outputs a single Y value per unique series.
   </definition>
   <definition term="Math">
   For each series, apply simple and advanced calculations. Only use **Math** for the last function in a series.
   </definition>
   </definitions>
2. To display each group separately, select one of the following options from the **Group by** dropdown:
   - **Filters** — Groups the data into the specified filters. To differentiate the groups, assign a color to each filter.
- **Terms** — Displays the top values of the field. The color is only configurable in the **Time Series** chart. To configure, click **Options**, then select an option from the **Split color theme** dropdown.
3. Click **Options**, then configure the inputs for the function. For example, to use a different field format, make a selection from the **Data formatter** dropdown.


## TSVB visualization options

The configuration options differ for each **TSVB** visualization.

### Time Series

By default, the y-axis displays the full range of data, including zero. To automatically scale the y-axis from the minimum to maximum values of the data, click **Data > Options > Fill**, then enter `0` in the **Fill** field. You can add annotations to the x-axis based on timestamped documents in a separate Elasticsearch index.

### All chart types except Time Series

The **Data timerange mode** dropdown in **Panel options** controls the timespan that **TSVB** uses to match documents. **Last value** is unable to match all documents, only the specific interval. **Entire timerange** matches all documents specified in the time filter.

### Metric, Top N, and Gauge

**Color rules** in **Panel options** contains conditional coloring based on the values.

### Top N and Table

When you click a series, **TSVB** applies a filter based on the series name. To change this behavior, click **Panel options**, then specify a URL in the **Item URL** field, which opens a URL instead of applying a filter on click.

### Markdown

The **Markdown** visualization supports Markdown with Handlebar (mustache) syntax to insert dynamic data, and supports custom CSS.

## Open and edit TSVB visualizations in Lens

When you open **TSVB** visualizations in **Lens**, all configuration options and annotations appear in the **Lens** visualization editor.
You can open the following **TSVB** visualizations in **Lens**:
- Time Series
- Metric
- Top N
- Gauge
- Table

To get started, click **Edit visualization in Lens** in the toolbar.
For more information, check out [Create visualizations with Lens](https://www.elastic.co/docs/explore-analyze/visualize/lens).

## View the visualization data requests

View the requests that collect the visualization data.
1. In the toolbar, click **Inspect**.
2. From the **Request** dropdown, select the series you want to view.


## Save and add the panel

Save the panel to the **Visualize Library** and add it to the dashboard, or add it to the dashboard without saving.
To save the panel to the **Visualize Library**:
1. Click **Save to library**.
2. Enter the **Title** and add any applicable [**Tags**](https://www.elastic.co/docs/explore-analyze/find-and-organize/tags).
3. Make sure that **Add to Dashboard after saving** is selected.
4. Click **Save and return**.

To save the panel to the dashboard:
1. Click **Save and return**.
2. Add an optional title to the panel.
   1. In the panel header, click **No Title**.
2. On the **Panel settings** window, select **Show title**.
3. Enter the **Title**, then click **Save**.


## Frequently asked questions

For answers to frequently asked **TSVB** question, review the following.
<dropdown title="How do I create dashboard drilldowns for Top N and Table visualizations?">
  You can create dashboard drilldowns that include the specified time range for **Top N** and **Table** visualizations.
  1. Open the dashboard that you want to link to, then copy the URL.
  2. Open the dashboard with the **Top N** and **Table** visualization panel, then click **Edit** in the toolbar.
  3. Open the **Top N** or **Table** panel menu, then select **Edit visualization**.
  4. Click **Panel options**.
  5. In the **Item URL** field, enter the URL.
     For example `dashboards#/view/f193ca90-c9f4-11eb-b038-dd3270053a27`.
  6. Click **Save and return**.
  7. In the toolbar, click **Save as**, then make sure **Store time with dashboard** is deselected.
</dropdown>

<dropdown title="How do I base drilldown URLs on my data?">
  You can build drilldown URLs dynamically with your visualization data.Do this by adding the `{{key}}` placeholder to your URLFor example `https://example.org/{{key}}`This instructs TSVB to substitute the value from your visualization wherever it sees `{{key}}`.If your data contain reserved or invalid URL characters such as "#" or "&", you should apply a transform to URL-encode the key like this `{{encodeURIComponent key}}`. If you are dynamically constructing a drilldown to another location in Kibana (for example, clicking a table row takes to you a value-scoped Discover session), you will likely want to Rison-encode your key as it may contain invalid Rison characters. ([Rison](https://github.com/Nanonid/rison#rison---compact-data-in-uris) is the serialization format many parts of Kibana use to store information in their URL.)For example: `discover#/view/0ac50180-82d9-11ec-9f4a-55de56b00cc0?_a=(filters:!((query:(match_phrase:(foo.keyword:{{rison key}})))))`If both conditions apply, you can cover all cases by applying both transforms: `{{encodeURIComponent (rison key)}}`.Technical note: TSVB uses [Handlebars](https://handlebarsjs.com/) to perform these interpolations. `rison` and `encodeURIComponent` are custom Handlebars helpers provided by Kibana.
</dropdown>

<dropdown title="Why is my TSVB visualization missing data?">
  It depends, but most often there are two causes:
  - For **Time series** visualizations with a derivative function, the time interval can be too small. Derivatives require sequential values.
  - For all other **TSVB** visualizations, the cause is probably the **Data timerange mode**, which is controlled by **Panel options > Data timerange mode > Entire time range**. By default, **TSVB** displays the last whole bucket. For example, if the time filter is set to **Last 24 hours**, and the current time is 9:41, **TSVB** displays only the last 10 minutes — from 9:30 to 9:40.
</dropdown>

<dropdown title="How do I calculate the difference between two data series?">
  Performing math across data series is unsupported in **TSVB**. To calculate the difference between two data series, use [**Timelion**](https://www.elastic.co/docs/explore-analyze/visualize/legacy-editors/timelion) or [**Vega**](https://www.elastic.co/docs/explore-analyze/visualize/custom-visualizations-with-vega).
</dropdown>

<dropdown title="How do I compare the current versus previous month?">
  **TSVB** can display two series with time offsets, but it can’t perform math across series. To add a time offset:
  1. Click **Clone Series**, then choose a color for the new series.
     ![](https://www.elastic.co/docs/explore-analyze/images/kibana-tsvb_clone_series.png)

  1. Click **Options**, then enter the offset value in the **Offset series time by** field.
</dropdown>

<dropdown title="How do I calculate a month over month change?">
  The ability to calculate a month over month change is not fully supported in **TSVB**, but there is a special case that is supported *if* the time filter is set to 3 months or more *and* the **Interval** is `1m`. Use the **Derivative** to get the absolute monthly change. To convert to a percent, add the **Math** function with the `params.current / (params.current - params.derivative)` formula, then select **Percent** from the **Data Formatter** dropdown.For other types of month over month calculations, use [**Timelion**](https://www.elastic.co/docs/explore-analyze/visualize/legacy-editors/timelion) or [**Vega**](https://www.elastic.co/docs/explore-analyze/visualize/custom-visualizations-with-vega).
</dropdown>

<dropdown title="How do I calculate the duration between the start and end of an event?">
  Calculating the duration between the start and end of an event is unsupported in **TSVB** because **TSVB** requires correlation between different time periods. **TSVB** requires that the duration is pre-calculated.
</dropdown>