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This feature has been a long time in coming: the ability to annotate your graphs! With the new annotations timeline sitting over the graph, not only can you create custom events to mark points in time, but you can also view alerts and see how they fit (or don't fit) your metric data.

Annotations Timeline

First, let's go to a graph and take a look at the annotations timeline to see how it works. When you choose a graph and view it, you will immediately see the new Annotation controls to the left side of the date tools, and the timeline itself will render in between the date tools and the graph itself. The timeline defaults to collapsed mode and by default will only show alerts from metrics on the current graph, so you may have an empty timeline at first. If you take a look at the controls, however, you will see three items: the Annotation menu, the show/hide toggle button, and the expand/collapse toggle button. The show/hide button does just what it says: it shows or hides the timeline. The expand/collapse button toggles between the space-saving collapsed timeline view and the more informative expanded timeline view.

If you open the Annotation menu, you will see a list of all the items you can possibly show in your timeline (or hide from it). Any selections you make here (as well as your show/hide and expand/collapse state changes) will be saved as site-wide user preferences in your current browser. All the items are separated into three groups:

Event Categories

This is a list of all the Event categories under the current account (these are seen and managed in the Events section of the site…we'll get to that new section in a minute). If you have uncategorized events (due to deleting a category that was still in use), they will appear grouped under the "--" pseudo-category label.

Alerts

By default, the only alerts that will be shown will be alerts of all severity (sev) levels triggered by metrics on the current graph. If you wish, you may also show all alerts, and both categories of alerts may be filtered by sev levels. To do so, click one of the alert labels to expand a sev filter row with more checkboxes.

Text Metrics

This third group is not shown by default, but is represented by the checkbox at the bottom labeled "Include text metrics." If you check this box, the page will refresh, and any text metrics on the current graph will then be rendered as a part of the timeline (and will be excluded from the graph plot and legend).

Once you have some annotations rendering on the timeline, take a look at the timeline itself. Hovering over a point will show a detail tooltip with the annotation title, date, and description, and hovering over either a point or a line segment will highlight the corresponding date range on the graph itself.

Now for the question on everyone's minds: "Can I create events here, or do I have to go to the Events section to do that?" The answer is, yes, you can create events straight from the view graph page! To do so, simply use your right mouse button to drag-select a time range on the graph itself. A dialog will then popup for you to input your info and create the event.

Events Section

Now let's head over to the Events section where you can manage your events and event categories. Simply click on the new Events tab (below the Graphs tab) and you're there! To create an event, click the standard "+" tab at the upper left of the page. This will give you the New Event dialog. Most of the dialog inputs are pretty straightforward, with the exception of the category dropdown. This is a new hybrid "editable" dropdown input. You may select any of its options if you'd like, or you can add new ones. To add a new option, simply select the last option (it's labeled "+ ADD Category"). Your cursor will immediately be placed in a standard text input where you can enter your new category. When you're finished, hit enter to create the new option and have it selected as your category of choice.

After you have created your event, you may need to edit it later. To edit any of its details, simply click on the pertinent detail of the event (when changing the event category, you will see it also has the new hybrid "editable" dropdown input which works exactly like the one in the New Event dialog).

In addition to start and end points (which may be the same date if you don't want more than a single point), you may also add midpoints to your event. Click the Show details button for an event (the arrow button at the right end of an event row), and you will see the Midpoints list taking up the right half of the event details panel. Simply click the Add Midpoint button to get the New Midpoint dialog where you enter a title, description and choose a date for your point.

The one last element of the Events section that's good to know about is the Categories menu at the upper right of the page. This allows you to delete categories as well as filter the Events list to only show a single category of events at a time. To do this, just click the name of a category in the Categories menu.

Back in October we released the first version of our new Templating API, allowing you to easily replicate sets of bundles across multiple hosts. Now we bring you the time-saving sweetness of Templates in the web interface as well; if you have multiple servers that you want to monitor in exactly the same way, Templates are your friend. The idea behind them is pretty simple: you choose your master host, and select one or more of its check bundles to be used as master bundles. Then when you select your target hosts, the master bundles are copied and applied to the target hosts.

Creating A Template

So let's look at how the Templating process works. Before you create a template, you first need to ensure that you have your master check bundles set up and active on your master host. Once that's the case, start by going to the new "data" section of Circonus and visiting the "Templates" tab at the left. Create a new template via the "+" tab (or the "Create A Template" button in the middle of the page if you have no templates yet). In the resulting dialog, type a name for your template and choose a master host, and when you click "OK" you will see the templates table appear with a row for your new template (as usual, click the summary row to view the expanded details of the template).

When you first create a template, it's in "draft" mode. This means that it's only saved in your browser's memory until you apply it. Nothing has been saved to the system yet, and the master bundles haven't been replicated. This allows you to lay out templates and modify them or discard them before making any changes to the system. If you wish to save changes to a draft you may do so via the "Save" button; the draft is not applied as a regular Template until you click the "Apply" button. To aid in visually scanning the list of Templates for drafts, drafts will always appear at the top of your list, and will always be green. (If at any point you wish to change your template name or master host, you may click them in the summary row to edit them in-place. Please note: when changing your master host, you may only choose among the target hosts currently saved in the Template.)

Choosing Bundles

Once you've created your draft, you need to choose your master check bundles. Under the "Check Bundles" section at the left, click "Add Bundle" to bring up the new bundle dialog. All the bundles available for your master host will be shown here in a scrollable list. This is a selectable list, so when you select a bundle, it's shown as selected in the list until you remove it from the Template. If you have a long list of bundles and are having a difficult time finding the ones you want, you may use the field above the list to filter the shown bundles by a filter string or regular expression (if you're using a regular expression, don't include the leading and trailing slashes, just use the desired RegEx syntax). After you have chosen a bundle, you may change its name by clicking on it in the list of chosen bundles. (Please Note: the reserved string "{target}" will be replaced by the current hostname/IP as the bundle is replicated across the target hosts.)

Choosing Hosts

Choosing your target hosts works mostly the same way as choosing the master check bundles. The "Add Host" button brings up a dialog with a scrollable, selectable, filterable list of available hosts on your account, and you may choose one or more of those hosts. There is an additional feature, however, which is the "Enter a new host" field below the list. This allows you to enter new hosts (either IP addresses or domain names are acceptable) that aren't currently used on your account. When you enter a new host and hit return/enter, the new host will be subject to a DNS check to ensure that it really exists; if it passes the DNS check, it will then be added to your list of target hosts.

Once you're satisfied with your bundle and host choices, clicking the "Apply" button will replicate your master bundles across each target host and will save the template in the database.

Modifying A Template

Once your Template is saved you will see several things change in the details panel. Each bundle and host will get checkboxes, and two "Action" dropdown selects will appear, one above the check bundles list and one above the target hosts list. Now that the bundles and hosts are a part of the template, if you wish to modify or remove them, you will need to check their checkboxes and choose an action from the appropriate dropdown before saving. There are four actions available:

Remove

When used on a bundle, it will delete the target bundles and remove them from the Template. When used on a host, it will delete the host's bundles and show the host as inactive in the host list.

Unbind

When used on a bundle, it will leave the target bundles in place but will break their synchronization with the template and show them as inactive in the bundle list. When used on a host, it will leave the host's bundles in place but will break their synchronization with the template and show the host as inactive in the host list.

Deactivate

When used on a bundle, it will deactivate the target bundles and show them as inactive in the bundle list. When used on a host, it will deactivate the host's bundles and show the host as inactive in the host list.

Restore

When used on a bundle, it will reactivate, rebind, or recreate target bundles as necessary, to restore them to active status and synchronization with the template. When used on a host, it will reactivate, rebind, or recreate the host's bundles as necessary, to restore them to active status and synchronization with the template.

Staying In-Sync

After creating and applying a Template, you are still allowed to edit the master check bundles. If you do so, any Templates using those check bundles as master bundles will be out-of-sync. When you go to your Templates page, the out-of-sync Templates will have their sync buttons activated and the buttons will say "Re-Sync." Simply click the "Re-Sync" button to replicate the bundle changes across all the target bundles, and the Template will be in-sync again.

(Please Note: if at any point you wish to delete the template, any active bundles that are still a part of the template will be deleted from the target hosts. If you wish to keep the bundles on the target hosts but just delete the template, you will need to unbind all the bundles you wish to keep on the target hosts and then delete the template.)

Ever dream of having a systems monitoring dashboard that was actually useful? One where you could move things around, resize them, and even choose what information you wanted to display? Large enterprise software packages may have decent dashboards, but what if you’re not a large enterprise or you don’t want to pay an arm and a leg for bloatware? Perhaps you have a good dashboard that came with a specific server or piece of hardware, but it’s narrowly-focused and inflexible. You’ve probably thought about (or even tried) creating your own dashboard, but it’s a significant undertaking that’s not for the faint-of-heart. What’s the solution? Should we just learn to live with sub-optimal monitoring tools?

Here at Circonus, we decided that this was one problem we could eliminate. Since we’ve built a SaaS offering that’s flexible enough to handle multiple different data sources, why shouldn’t we build a dashboard that’s flexible enough to display them? So we created a configurable dashboard that lets you monitor your data however you want. Do you want to show graphs side-by-side but at different sizes? Done. Want an up-to-date list of alerts beside those graphs? Easy. How about some real-time metric charts that automatically refresh? No problem. Our new configurable dashboards allow you to add all these items and more. Let’s dig in and see how these new dashboards work.

Dashboard Basics

Start by going to the standard “Dashboard” and clicking the new “My Dashboards” tab. These dashboards are truly yours; any dashboards you create are only visible to you (by default) and are segregated by account. If you want to share a custom dashboard with everyone else on an account, check that dashboard’s “share” checkbox in your list of custom dashboards.

After you have created a custom dashboard, you may set it to be your default dashboard by using the radio buttons down the left side of your custom dashboards list. If you do this, you will be greeted with your selected dashboard when you login to Circonus. By selecting the “Standard Circonus Dashboard” as your default dashboard, you will revert to being greeted with the old dashboard you’re already used to seeing.

To create a new custom dashboard, click the “+” tab and choose a layout. At first you will see only a couple predefined layouts available, but after you create a dashboard, its layout will then be available to choose when creating other new dashboards.

Now a note about working with these dashboards: every action auto-saves so you never have to worry about losing changes you’ve made. However, if you haven’t given your dashboard a title, the dashboard isn’t permanently saved yet. If you forget to title your dashboard and go off to do other things, don’t worry, the dashboard you created is saved in your browser’s memory. All you have to do is visit the “My Dashboards” page and your dashboard will be listed there. With two clicks you can give your dashboard a title and save it permanently. (Please note our minimum browser requirements—Firefox 4+ or Chrome—which are especially applicable for these new custom dashboards, since we’re using some features which are not available in older browsers.)

So let's create a dashboard. Choose a layout, click “Create Dashboard,” and you will be taken to the new dashboard with the “Add A Widget” panel extended. To begin, let’s check out the title area. Notice that when you hover over the title, a dropdown menu appears. This lists your other dashboards on the current account (as well as dashboards shared by other account members) and is useful for quickly switching between dashboards.

To the right of the title are some icons. The first icon opens the grid options dialog, which lets you change the dimensions of the dashboard grid, hide the grid (it’s still active and usable, though), enable or disable text scaling, and choose whether or not to auto-hide the title bar in fullscreen mode. The second icon toggles fullscreen mode on and off. Once you enter fullscreen mode a third icon will appear, and this icon toggles the “Black Dash” theme (this theme is only available in fullscreen mode). The current states of both fullscreen mode and the “Black Dash” theme are saved with your dashboard.

One other note about the dashboard interface: if you leave a dashboard sitting for more than ten or fifteen seconds and notice that parts of the interface disappear (along with the mouse cursor), don’t worry…it’s just gone to sleep! A move of the mouse will make everything visible again. (If there are any widget settings panels open, though, the sleep timer will not activate.)

Widgets

Now for the meat of it all: widgets. We currently have ten widgets which can be added to the dashboard grid to show various types of data, and we’ll be adding more widget types and contents in the future. Following is a quick rundown of the currently available widgets:

Graph

Graph widgets let you add existing graphs to your dashboard. You may choose any graph from the “My Graphs” section under your current account. Graph widgets are refreshed every few minutes to ensure they’re always up-to-date.

Beacon Map

Map widgets let you add existing Beacon maps to your dashboard. You may choose any map query from the “Beacons” page (under the “Checks” section of your current account). Map widgets are updated in real-time.

Beacon Table

Table widgets let you add existing Beacon tables to your dashboard. You may choose any table query from the “Beacons” page (under the “Checks” section of your current account). Table widgets are updated in real-time.

Chart

Chart widgets let you select multiple metrics to monitor and compare in a bar or pie chart. Chart widgets are updated in real-time.

Gauge

Gauge widgets let you monitor the current state of a single numeric metric in a graphical manner, displaying the most recent value on a bar gauge (dial gauges are coming soon). Gauge widgets are updated in real-time.

Status

Status widgets let you monitor the current state of one or more metrics, displaying the most recent value with custom formatting. This is most useful for text metrics, but it may be used for numeric metrics as well. Status widgets are updated in real-time.

HTML

HTML widgets let you embed arbitrary HTML content on your dashboard. It can be used for just about anything, from displaying a logo or graphic to using an iframe to embed more in-depth content. Everything is permissible except Javascript. HTML widgets are refreshed every few minutes to ensure they’re always up-to-date.

List

List widgets let you add lists of graphs and worksheets to your dashboard, ordered by their last modified date. You may specify how many items to list and (optionally) a search string to limit the list. List widgets are refreshed every few minutes to ensure they’re always up-to-date.

Alerts

Alerts widgets let you monitor your checks by showing the most recent alerts on your current account. You may filter the alerts by their age (how long ago they occurred), by particular search terms, by severity levels, or other status criteria. Alerts widgets are refreshed every few minutes to ensure they’re always up-to-date.

Admin

Admin widgets let you monitor selected administrative information, including the status of all Circonus agents on your current account. Admin widgets are refreshed every few minutes to ensure they’re always up-to-date.

To add widgets to the dashboard grid, there are two methods: you may use the “drag-and-drop” method (dragging from the “Add a Widget” panel), or you may first click the target grid cell and then select the widget you want to place there. (Note: in fullscreen mode only the latter method is available.) After a widget has been added, some types of widgets will automatically activate with default settings, but most will be inactive. If the widget is inactive, click it to open the settings panel and get started. Once the widget is activated, the settings panel is available by clicking the settings icon in the upper right corner of the widget. In the lower right corner of the widget is the resize handle, so you can resize the widget as frequently as you want. And let’s not forget being able to rearrange the widgets—every widget has a transparent “title bar” at its top which you can use to drag it around. I won’t get into the details of settings for every type of widget, because they should be self-explanatory (and that would make this one super-long blog post). But suffice it to say, there are plenty of options for everyone.

We've been working hard to create a configurable dashboard that will be as flexible as Circonus itself is, and we believe we’ve hit pretty close to the mark. Here’s a sample dashboard showing the power of these new dashboards:

All web users who bemoan the general lack of support for keyboard accessibility in web apps, take heart! Circonus has some great features for keyboard lovers. We know there are many web users out there for whom keyboard shortcuts are a quicker and easier way to use applications, particularly web apps. This is especially true if you use a specific app heavily, or are a full-time computer user in general.

Anywhere in Circonus, you can always see the keyboard help screen by typing “?” so you’ll have an ever-present “cheat sheet” as you learn the shortcuts. As soon as new keyboard functionality is added, the keyboard help screen will be updated immediately to reflect the new shortcuts, thanks to the magic of continuous deployment.

Jump Navigation

To jump to a particular section in Circonus, all you have to do is type the proper keyword and you will jump there immediately. For example, type the keyword “dash” (d-a-s-h) and you will jump to the current account’s dashboard. It’s that easy! Here’s a list of the current jump keywords:

• “dash” (jump to the dashboard)
• “alerts” (jump to the fault dashboard)
• “rules” (jump to rules)
• “checks” (jump to checks)
• “metrics” (jump to metrics)
• “trends” (jump to the trending dashboard)
• “graphs” (jump to graphs)
• “worksheets” (jump to worksheets)

The shortcut for opening the feedback dialog also works the same way: simply type “feedback” and the feedback dialog will open for you. Another quick shortcut is the forward-slash (/), which focuses on any search field that may be on the page.

Graph & Worksheet Shortcuts

Here’s where we get to the good stuff. We’ve added some great shortcuts to work with graphs and an enhanced zoom tool which is only available via keyboard shortcuts.

To start off, you can now see the legend on any thumbnail graph view (on “My Graphs,” “Trending Dashboard,” and all worksheets) not only on the large graph views as before. To do so, simply hold down the shift key, and the legend will appear for whichever graph you’re hovering over. On a worksheet, the shift key also inverts the legend hover option. So if you have enabled the new worksheet option to show legends upon graph hovering, holding down the shift key will disable the hovering legends.

Back in January we launched an enhanced graph zoom toolbar that relies on keyboard shortcuts. Normally the zoom toolbar is labeled “Past” because its buttons will set the graph zoom level to view data from the past one week, two weeks, etc. However, if you hold down either comma or period, the zoom tool will be enhanced and the label will change to “shift.” You will also see an orange bar at the end of the graph(s) which indicates the end that will be shifted (and if you hold both keys, you will get two orange bars, indicating that you can pan the entire graph date range into the past or the future). While holding one or both keys, click one of the new arrow icons that appear inside the “shift” buttons—the graph date(s) will be shifted by the specified amount in the specified direction. Not only does this work when viewing or editing graphs, it works almost everywhere there is one or more graphs, whether large or thumbnail sized.

One last set of useful shortcuts applies when viewing a worksheet. Among the newly added worksheet options is the ability to resize worksheet graphs to one of three sizes. In addition to being able to do this by clicking the buttons in the worksheet options dialog, you can instantly change the size of your worksheet graphs by pressing alt+1, alt+2, or alt+3.

Being avid keyboard users ourselves, we are excited to build keyboard support into more areas of Circonus as we are able to do so. Keep watching for more keyboard info and if you have ideas for some useful shortcuts, please let us know!