Make dashboards interactiveedit

Add interactive capabilities to your dashboard, such as controls that allow you to apply dashboard-level filters, and drilldowns that allow you to navigate to other dashboards and external websites.

Controls panels allow you to apply dashboard-level filters based on values from a list, or a range of values.

Kibana supports two types of Controls:

  • Options list — Filters content based on one or more specified options. The dropdown menu is dynamically populated with the results of a terms aggregation. For example, use the options list on the sample flight dashboard when you want to filter the data by origin city and destination city.
  • Range slider — Filters data within a specified range of numbers. The minimum and maximum values are dynamically populated with the results of a min and max aggregation. For example, use the range slider when you want to filter the sample flight dashboard by a specific average ticket price.

    dashboard controls

Panels have built-in interactive capabilities that apply filters to the dashboard data. For example, when you drag a time range or click a pie slice, a filter for the time range or pie slice is applied. Drilldowns let you customize the interactive behavior while keeping the context of the interaction.

Kibana supports two types of drilldowns:

  • Dashboard — Navigates you from one dashboard to another dashboard. For example, when can create a drilldown for a Lens panel that navigates you from a summary dashboard to a dashboard with a filter for a specific host name.
  • URL — Navigates you from a dashboard to an external website. For example, a website with the specific host name as a parameter.

Third-party developers can create drilldowns. To learn how to code drilldowns, refer to this example plugin.

Add Controls panelsedit

Add interactive dashboard-level filter panels to your dashboard.

  1. On the dashboard, click All types, then select Controls.
  2. Click Options, then configure the following options:

    • Update Kibana filters on each change — When selected, all interactive inputs create filters that refresh the dashboard. When unselected, Kibana filters are created only when you click Apply changes.
    • Use time filter — When selected, the aggregations that generate the options list and time range are connected to the time filter.
    • Pin filters for all applications — When selected, all filters created by interacting with the inputs are automatically pinned.
  3. Click Update

Create dashboard drilldownsedit

Dashboard drilldowns enable you to open a dashboard from another dashboard, taking the time range, filters, and other parameters with you so the context remains the same. Dashboard drilldowns help you to continue your analysis from a new perspective.

For example, if you have a dashboard that shows the logs and metrics for multiple data centers, you can create a drilldown that navigates from the dashboard that shows multiple data centers, to a dashboard that shows a single data center or server.

Drilldown on data table that navigates to another dashboard

The panels you create using the following editors support dashboard drilldowns:

  • Lens
  • Maps
  • TSVB
  • Vega
  • Aggregation-based area chart, data table, heat map, horitizontal bar chart, line chart, pie chart, tag cloud, and vertical bar chart
  • Timelion

Create and set up the dashboards you want to connectedit

Use the Sample web logs data to create a dashboard and add panels, then set a search and filter on the [Logs] Web traffic dashboard.

  1. Add the Sample web logs data.
  2. Create a new dashboard, click Add from Library, then add the following panels:

    • [Logs] Heatmap
    • [Logs] Host, Visits, and Bytes Table
    • [Logs] Total Requests and Bytes
    • [Logs] Visitors by OS
  3. Set the time filter to Last 30 days.
  4. Save the dashboard. In the Title field, enter Host Overview.
  5. Open the [Logs] Web traffic dashboard.
  6. Create a data table.

    1. In the toolbar, click Edit.
    2. Click Create visualization.
    3. From the Chart type dropdown, select Table.
    4. From the Available fields list, drag and drop the following fields onto the visualization builder:

      • agent.keyword
      • bytes
      • geo.src
      • ip
    5. In the editor, remove Count of records, then click Save and return.
  7. On the [Logs] Web traffic dashboard, set a search and filter.

    Search: extension.keyword: ("gz" or "css" or "deb")
    Filter: geo.src: CN

Create the drilldownedit

Create a drilldown that opens the Host Overview dashboard from the [Logs] Web traffic dashboard.

  1. Open the panel menu for the data table you created, then select Create drilldown.
  2. Click Go to dashboard.

    1. Give the drilldown a name. For example, My Drilldown.
    2. From the Choose a destination dashboard dropdown, select Host Overview.
    3. To use the geo.src filter, KQL query, and time filter, select Use filters and query from origin dashboard and Use date range from origin dashboard.
    4. Click Create drilldown.
  3. Save the dashboard.
  4. In the data table panel, hover over a value, click +, then select My Drilldown.

    Drilldown on data table that navigates to another dashboard

Create URL drilldownsedit

URL drilldowns enable you to navigate from a dashboard to external websites. Destination URLs can be dynamic, depending on the dashboard context or user interaction with a panel. To create URL drilldowns, you add variables to a URL template, which configures the behavior of the drilldown.

Drilldown on pie chart that navigates to Github

Some panels support multiple interactions, also known as triggers. The variables you use to create a URL template depends on the trigger you choose. URL drilldowns support these types of triggers:

  • Single click — A single data point in the panel.
  • Range selection — A range of values in a panel.

For example, Single click has {{event.value}} and Range selection has {{event.from}} and {{event.to}}.

The panels you create using the following editors support dashboard drilldowns:

  • Lens
  • Maps
  • TSVB
  • Aggregation-based area chart, data table, heat map, horitizontal bar chart, line chart, pie chart, tag cloud, and vertical bar chart

Create a URL drilldownedit

For example, if you have a dashboard that shows data from a Github repository, you can create a URL drilldown that opens Github from the dashboard panel.

  1. Add the Sample web logs data.
  2. Open the [Logs] Web traffic dashboard.
  3. In the toolbar, click Edit.
  4. Open the [Logs] Visitors by OS panel menu, then select Create drilldown.
  5. Click Go to URL.

    1. Give the drilldown a name. For example, Show on Github.
    2. For the Trigger, select Single click.
    3. To navigate to the Kibana repository Github issues, enter the following in the Enter URL field:

      https://github.com/elastic/kibana/issues?q=is:issue+is:open+{{event.value}}

      Kibana substitutes {{event.value}} with a value associated with the selected pie slice.

    4. Click Create drilldown.
  6. Save the dashboard.
  7. On the [Logs] Visitors by OS panel, click any chart slice, then select Show on Github.

    URL drilldown popup

  8. In the list of Kibana repository issues, verify that the slice value appears.

    Github

Manage drilldownsedit

Make changes to your drilldowns, make a copy of your drilldowns for another panel, and delete drilldowns.

  1. Open the panel menu that includes the drilldown, then click Manage drilldowns.
  2. On the Manage tab, use the following options:

    • To change drilldowns, click Edit next to the drilldown you want to change, make your changes, then click Save.
    • To make a copy, click Copy next to the drilldown you want to change, enter the drilldown name, then click Create drilldown.
    • To delete a drilldown, select the drilldown you want to delete, then click Delete.