Display alert charts and incidents on a dashboard

To view the chart associated with an alerting policy and information about incidents in the same context as your metric data, add alert charts and incident widgets to your custom dashboard. Alert charts display the time series that the policy monitors, a threshold, the number of open incidents associated with the policy, and whether the policy is disabled. The following screenshot illustrates an alert chart:

Example of an alert chart.

The information in this document is for the Google Cloud console. For information about using the Cloud Monitoring API, 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.

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.
You can put up to 40 widgets on a dashboard.

Add alerting policies to a dashboard

To display the chart for an alerting policy on a dashboard, do the following:

In the navigation panel of the Google Cloud console, select Monitoring, and then select Dashboards:
Go to Dashboards
Select a dashboard or click Create dashboard.
In the toolbar, click Add widget.
In the Add widget dialog, select Alert Policy.
Click Alert policy, and then select an alerting policy.
To apply your changes to the dashboard, in the toolbar, click Apply. To discard your changes, click Cancel.

View alerting policies

When you are viewing an alert chart, you might want more information about the alerting policy the alert chart displays. For example, you might want to review the selected notification channels or what custom documentation is included with a notification. To get information about the alerting policy, try the following:

To access the alerting policy, click the incidents chip on the alert chart, and then select View alert policy.
To view details of the alert chart, place your pointer on the alert chart, click More chart options, and then select View in Metrics Explorer.

Metrics Explorer displays a copy of the alert chart that is on your dashboard.

Delete alerting policies

If you delete the alerting policy associated with an alert chart, then the alert chart no longer displays any data. For more information, see Alert chart doesn't display any data.

Display incidents on a dashboard

To view a table of incidents in the same context as your metric data, add an Incidents widget. Each row in an Incidents table lists information about one incident. That information includes the policy name, the condition name, and when the incident opened. The widget includes options that let you view the associated alerting policy and the incident details.

The following screenshot illustrates an Incidents widget:

Example of an **Incidents** widget.

The remaining information in this section is for the Google Cloud console. For information about using the Cloud Monitoring API, see Dashboard with an Incidents widget.

To display incidents on a dashboard, do the following:

In the navigation panel of the Google Cloud console, select Monitoring, and then select Dashboards:
Go to Dashboards
Select a dashboard or click Create dashboard.
In the toolbar, click Add widget.
In the Add widget dialog, select Incidents.
Optional: Add a title.
Optional: Select the criteria that define which incidents are shown. By default, all incidents in the Google Cloud project are listed. However, you can restrict the widget to display incidents for specific alerting policies or for specific resources and metrics:
- To display all incidents, use the default settings.
- To display only incidents for specific alerting policies, select Alert policy and then make selections from the Alert policies menu.
- To display only incidents for specific resource types, select Resource type and then make selections from the Resource types menu.
You can't select specific alerting policies and specific resource types.
To apply your changes to the dashboard, in the toolbar, click Apply. To discard your changes, click Cancel.

By default, only open incidents are shown. To show all incidents, including those that have closed within the timer interval specified by the time-range selector, place your pointer on the incidents widget to enable the toolbar, and then enable the Show closed incidents toggle.

You can sort the list of incidents by the opened or closed date. You can also search the list by using the Filter field.

View incident and alert policy details

When you are viewing an Incidents widget, you might want information about the alerting policy or the incident:

To view the details of the alerting policy associated with the incident, find that incident in the Incidents widget and then select the policy name.
To view the details of an incident, find that incident in the Incidents widget and click View.

What's next

You can also add the following widgets to your custom dashboards:

For information about exploring charted data and filtering your dashboards, see the following documents: