Data explorer quick start

Use this procedure to get hands-on experience with the Data explorer.

In this walkthrough, you'll:

• Create a simple metric chart
• Use the chart in the Data explorer
• Pin the chart to a dashboard as a tile

If you instead want the technical details about creating a query, see:

• Data explorer
• Data explorer Code tab (advanced query editor)

Create a chart

1. In the Dynatrace menu, go to Explore data.
2. On the Build tab, add a metric to your query.

   • Select a metric such as CPU usage % (builtin:host.cpu.usage).

     When you browse the list of metrics, an overview of the highlighted metric is displayed. To see details about that metric, select View all metric information. This opens the Metrics browser in a new tab (so you don't lose your work in the Data explorer) with lots of useful details about the selected metric.

     Metric details available in the 'Metrics browser'

     Field	Description
     Metric name	The name of the metric in the user interface.
     Metric key	The fully qualified key of the metric. If a transformation has been used, it is reflected in the metric key.
     Entity type	Entity type for this metric.
     Description	A short description of the metric.
     Tags	Tags allow further grouping of metrics.
     Created	The timestamp when the metric was created.
     Last written	The timestamp when the metric was last written.
     DDU billing	Whether the metric is subject to Davis data unit (DDU) consumption.
     Unit	The unit of the metric.
     Minimum value	The known lower boundary value for the metric.
     Maximum value	The known upper boundary value for the metric.
     Default aggregation	The default aggregation for this metric.
     Aggregations	The list of allowed aggregations for this metric.
     Dimensions	The fine metric division (for example, process group and process ID for a process-related metric).
     Transformations	Possible transform operators.

   • Choose an aggregation (for example, Average, Minimum, or Maximum)

   • Select Split by dimensions. In this example (CPU usage %), we split by host to see CPU usage per host.

   • Specify Filter by criteria as needed. In this example, we leave it empty.

   For details on building a query, see Query components and concepts and Examples.

3. optional To review or edit the code for your query, switch to the Code tab, which is the advanced query editor.
4. Add and delete metrics as needed.
   • A query can have up to 10 rows.
   • To add a new empty row, select Add metric and then repeat the previous step to define that row.
   • To make a copy of a metric that you have already added to the query, select More (…) > Duplicate and then edit the copy as needed.
     
   • To delete a metric, select More (…) > Delete.
5. optional To add or remove metric transformations for a row, select the transformations (+) button and then select or clear checkboxes as needed.
   
6. Select Run query to take a first look at the chart.
7. Use the Settings panel to configure your visualization.
   • The chart is updated with each change.
   • Choose from several visualization types:
     • Graph
     • Pie
     • Single value
     • Table
     • Top list
     • Heatmap

When you are satisfied with your visualization, you can use it within Data explorer immediately or pin it to a dashboard for future use.

Use the chart in Data explorer

Chart elements are active. For example:

• To see details in tooltips, hover over chart elements
• To drill down from a problematic (red) element, select it.
• To hide or show a chart element, select the corresponding label in the chart legend

Pin the chart to a dashboard

To save the chart as a dashboard tile, select Pin to dashboard.

To return from the dashboard to Data explorer with the chart open for viewing and editing, open the menu in the upper-right corner of the tile and select Configure tile in Data Explorer. Now two buttons are displayed in the upper-right of the Data explorer:

• Save changes to dashboard—saves the chart to a same tile and dashboard you used to open the Data explorer. If you have made any changes, they will update the tile on your dashboard.
• Pin to dashboard—saves the chart as a tile on a different dashboard. You might want to pin the same chart (perhaps with filtering differences) to various dashboards.

For details about pinning tiles to dashboards, see Pin tiles to your dashboard.