Manage dashboard widgets

After you create a custom dashboard, you might want to modify the dashboard. For example, you might want to convert a line chart, which displays every time series, to a stacked-area chart so that you can view the proportion each time series contributes to the sum.

This document describes how to change a widget's type, how to modify which time series a widget displays, and how to delete a widget by using the Google Cloud console. For information about how to manage custom dashboards by using the API, see Create and manage dashboards by API.

For information about how to add widgets to a dashboard, see the following documents:

Before you begin

To get the permissions that you need to create and modify custom dashboards by using the Google Cloud console, ask your administrator to grant you the Monitoring Editor (roles/monitoring.editor) IAM role on your project. For more information about granting roles, see Manage access to projects, folders, and organizations.

You might also be able to get the required permissions through custom roles or other predefined roles.

For more information about roles, see Control access with Identity and Access Management.

View JSON representation

The JSON representation of a dashboard or a widget can be helpful when you prefer to manage your dashboards by using the Cloud Monitoring API but you prototype your dashboards by using the Google Cloud console.

To view or modify the JSON representation for the dashboard, do the following:

In the Google Cloud console, go to the Dashboards page:
Go to Dashboards

If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is Monitoring.
Select a dashboard or click Create dashboard.
Do one of the following:
- To view or modify the JSON representation for the dashboard, in the dashboard toolbar, click Settings, click JSON, and then click JSON Editor.
  
  You can now view or modify the JSON representation. If you make modifications, then ensure that you click Apply changes.
- To view or modify the JSON representation for a specific widget, place your pointer on the widget to activate the toolbar, click Edit widget, and then click JSON Editor.
  
  You can now view or modify the JSON. If you make modifications, then ensure that you click Apply changes.

Change a widget's type

When a widget is displaying the correct data but not presenting it in the most useful way, consider changing the widget's type. For example, suppose you have a line chart on your dashboard. To view how each time series contributes to the sum, change that line chart to a stacked-area chart.

You can change a widget's type only if the destination widget can represent the data shown by the source widget. For example, you can always change a line chart into a stacked-area or stacked-bar chart. Similarly, you can always convert a gauge, which shows a single time series, into a line chart. However, you might not be able to convert a line chart, which can show multiple time series, into a gauge.

You can't change the type of a chart that displays data for an alerting policy, a logs panel, or a collapsible group. You can't convert any widget to a logs panel or to a collapsible group widget.

Create alerting policy from a line chart

To convert a line chart that displays a single metric type to a chart that displays data for an alerting policy, do the following:

In the Google Cloud console, go to the Dashboards page:
Go to Dashboards

If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is Monitoring.
Select a dashboard or click Create dashboard.
Place your pointer on the widget to activate the toolbar, click More options, and then select Convert to alert chart.

When you make this selection, the Create alert policy dialog opens and the metric, filter, and grouping selections from your chart are applied to the alerting condition. Complete the specification of the alerting policy and then click Create. For information about those steps, see Create an alerting policy.
To apply your changes to the dashboard, in the toolbar, click Apply. To discard your changes, click Cancel.

To perform any conversions other than converting a line chart to a chart that displays data for an alerting policy, do the following:

In the Google Cloud console, go to the Dashboards page:
Go to Dashboards

If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is Monitoring.
Select a dashboard or click Create dashboard.
On the widget whose type you want to change, place your pointer on the widget to activate the toolbar, and then click Edit widget.
In the Display pane, expand the Widget type menu, and then make a selection.

The Widget type menu lists all widget types that can display the same type of data; however, some widgets might not be enabled.

For example, consider a chart that displays multiple time series, where each measurement is a double:
- The logs panel isn't listed because it can't display time-series data.
- The Scorecard and Gauge widgets are listed under the heading Compatible with adjustments because these two widgets can only display a single time series and the chart is displaying multiple time series. Before you can convert to one of these types, you must modify the grouping configuration.
- The Heatmap widget is disabled because these widgets only display distribution-valued data.
- The Stacked area, Stacked bar, and Table widgets are listed under the heading Compatible. You can select one of these values.
To apply your changes to the dashboard, in the toolbar, click Apply. To discard your changes, click Cancel.

Modify a widget's configuration

To change which time series a widget displays or to change how those time series are combined, modify the widget's configuration. For example, when a chart displays many time series, you can improve the chart's performance and visual clarity by grouping time series by one or more labels.

To modify a widget's configuration, do the following:

In the Google Cloud console, go to the Dashboards page:
Go to Dashboards

If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is Monitoring.
Select a dashboard or click Create dashboard.
Edit the widget:
- For all widgets other than the single-view widget and the collapsible group widget, place your pointer on the widget to activate the toolbar, and then click Edit widget.
  
  The configuration page for the widget opens.
- For the collapsible group widget, do any of the following:
  - To edit the group name, click Edit group, and then complete the dialog.
  - To add widgets to the group, drag the widgets from the dashboard to the group.
  - To remove widgets from the group, delete the widgets or drag them to unused space on the dashboard.
- For the single-view widget, expand the Widget menu, click Edit group, and then do any of the following:
  - To add a widget to the group, click Add widget and then complete the dialog.
  - To remove a widget from the group, do one of the following:
    1. To delete a widget, click Delete widget.
    2. To remove a widget from the group and move it to the dashboard, click Remove from group.
To apply your changes to the dashboard, in the toolbar, click Apply. To discard your changes, click Cancel.

Delete a widget

How quickly a dashboard displays data depends on the number of widgets the dashboard displays and on the number of time series each widget displays. To improve the performance of a dashboard, one option is to place rarely used widgets in a collapsible group widget and collapse the group. Data for widgets in a collapsed group is loaded at a lower priority than for other dashboard widgets. An alternative to using the collapsible group widget is to delete those widgets that you don't use.

Deleting a chart associated with an alerting policy doesn't delete the alerting policy whose data was displayed on the chart. To delete an alerting policy, go to the Alerting page in the Google Cloud console. For information about how to delete a policy, see Manage alerting policies. You can't delete an alerting policy from a custom dashboard.

To delete a widget on a dashboard, do the following:

In the Google Cloud console, go to the Dashboards page:
Go to Dashboards

If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is Monitoring.
Select a dashboard or click Create dashboard.
Delete the widget:
- For all widgets other than the single-view widget and the collapsible group widget, place your pointer on the widget to activate the toolbar, click More options, and then select Delete widget.
- For the collapsible group widget, place your pointer on the widget to activate the toolbar, and then do one of the following:
  - To delete the collapsible group widget and the widgets it contains, click Remove group and its children.
  - To delete a collapsible group widget and move the widgets to the dashboard, click Remove the group but keep its children.
- For the single-view widget, expand the Widget menu, click Edit group, and then do one of the following:
  - To delete the single-view group widget and the widgets it contains, click Delete group.
  - To delete the single-view group and move the widgets it contains to the dashboard, click Ungroup.
To apply your changes to the dashboard, in the toolbar, click Apply. To discard your changes, click Cancel.

What's next

Explore charted data
Configure legends
Filter a dashboard:
- Add temporary filters to a custom dashboard
- Add permanent filters to a custom dashboard