How to use the Web API tile

About Web API tiles

The Web API tile allows you to pull data from external APIs and display this data using a variety of visualizations.

What kinds of APIs are supported?

The Web API tile works with any REST API that returns JSON.

How do I connect to the API I want to use?

The connection details are not stored in the tile, but in the provider. You need to create a provider before you can use the Web API tile. Adding an API provider is a one-time configuration task to be carried out by a Dashboard Server administrator.

See How to add a Web API provider

How do I get data from the API into the tile?

The Web API tile supports GET and POST requests. For the format of those requests, you need to refer to the API documentation of the service you want to integrate with.

Should I use the Web API tile or one of the dedicated tiles?

For the most used APIs we now have dedicated tiles to make integration quicker and simpler:

	How to use the Azure Log Analytics tile How to use the Azure Application Insights tile
	How to use the Elasticsearch tile
	If you want to display incidents or change requests from ServiceNow, you can use the dedicated ServiceNow tile which is quick and easy to set up. How to use the ServiceNow tile For any other ServiceNow data, you need to use the Web API tile: How to use the Web API tile with ServiceNow
	How to use the Splunk tile

If there's no dedicated tile for the API you want to use, you can always use the Web API tile. Here are articles with examples about how to integrate with some popular APIs using the Web API tile:

How to use the Web API tile with Pingdom

Further help for integrating with APIs:

Blog: Integrating Dashboard Server with external APIs: UptimeRobot

Webinar - Integrating with Splunk, New Relic, Solarwinds and more

Take a look at our Community Answers site, where there's a wealth of knowledge about APIs

If you're looking for some real-life examples of Dashboard Server dashboards, check out our GitHub Samples repository. You'll find dashboards built by the community as JSON exports you can use as templates for configuring your own dashboards.

How to configure a Web API tile

If you don't already have a provider for Web API tiles, you need to create one before you can configure your Web API tile (How to add a Web API provider).

Add a new tile to a dashboard and choose the Web API tile.
Choose the visualization for your Web API tile:
Scalar
A single value such as a number of customers or incidents.
Example:
Grid
A table of data, for example incidents or tickets.
Tip: You can turn the individual rows into links in the settings. For example, if you're displaying tickets in your grid, you can link the rows to the ticket in your external ticket system.
Did you know? Since Dashboard Server 5.4 users can search the grid, and temporarily change the column size and sorting of the grid (by clicking on the column headers) without having to access the settings. They can also expand a row by clicking on the three dots at the end of each row if cells are too small to show their entire content.
Line Graph
Shows data over time, in a graph with an x-axis (time) and a y-axis. You can show several objects, such as servers, in one graph.
Example:
Sparklines
Shows data over time (like line graphs), but each item gets its own graph instead of showing all lines in one graph.
Example:
Bar Graph
Visualizes both a number and the resulting bar width based on the number value.
Example:
Donut
Shows the results in a donut shape.
Example:
Status Icons
Shows the state of items as icons with different colors. You can display just the icons or together with a description. You can also use a background image and drag the icons into position on the image.
Example:
Status Blocks
Shows the state of items as blocks with different colors.
Example:
Provider:
Choose the provider you want to use for this tile.
You can use generic and dedicated integrations to create your own providers. Of course, a dedicated provider like ServiceNow will only work with the ServiceNow API.

HTTP mode:

Choose if you want to use a GET or POST request.

URL:
This is the query URL. The query URL gets added to the URL you defined in the provider you are using for this tile.

Example:
You want to query https://myservice/customers/tickets.
Your provider URL is https://myservice/
Your query URL needs to be customers/tickets

Adding query parameters to your query URL

The easiest way to add query parameters to your query URL is using the data section in the Headers&Data panel. The parameters you enter there automatically get added to your query URL in the correct format.

If you want to add the query parameters manually here, you need to make sure you use the correct format to separate the query parameters from the query URL, for example https://myservice/endpoint?filter=customers

Please refer to the API documentation of the API you are using to see which query parameters are supported and what values they can have.

Using the page timeframe as a query parameter

You can use the mustache picker to insert page timeframe variables.

Please refer to the API documentation of the API you are using to see what kind of time format is required as a value.

Available formats for inserting the page timeframe via the mustache picker

Dynamic page timeframe formats

When you use page timeframe variables, the dynamic page timeframe will be inserted as a string in your search query, script, field, or wherever you use the variable.

`timeframe.isoDuration`	Use this format when you want to insert the page timeframe according to the ISO standard for time ranges (period of time). Example: When them page timeframe is set to "last 12 hours" the string `PT12H` is inserted.
`timeframe.isoStart`	Use this format to insert a "from" time when you want the starting point to be "now minus page timeframe". The page timeframe will be inserted as a starting time according to the ISO 8601 standard. Example: When the page timeframe is set to "last 12 hours" the starting time is "now minus 12 hours".
`timeframe.isoEnd`	Use this format to insert a "to" time when you need to specify the end time. The end time is always "now". The current time will be inserted according to the ISO 8601 standard.
`timeframe.unixStart`	Use this format to insert a "from" time when you want the starting point to be "now minus page timeframe". The page timeframe will be inserted as a starting time in milliseconds according to the UNIX standard. Example: When the page timeframe is set to "last 12 hours", the starting time is "now minus 12 hours".
`timeframe.unixEnd`	Use this format to insert a "to" time when you need to specify the end time. The end time is always "now". The current time will be inserted in milliseconds according to the Unix standard.
`Math.floor(timeframe.UnixStart / 1000)`	Use this format when you want to use the `unixStart` time but need to convert it from milliseconds to seconds.
`Math.floor(timeframe.UnixEnd / 1000)`	Use this format when you want to use the `unixEnd` time but need to convert it from milliseconds to seconds.

Fixed timeframe formats (without using the dynamic page timeframe)

Date.now() - 86400 * 1000 *14

This is a template format to express the fixed timeframe "14 days ago" (now minus 14 days in milliseconds). You can use this template to create your own fixed timeframe.

How to read the parameters of the template:

Date.now() = the current date and time (now) in milliseconds
86400 = 24 hours in seconds
1000 = converts the seconds into milliseconds
14 = 14 days

If you want to use a fixed timeframe in seconds, you need to convert the Date.now() into seconds, for example "4 days ago in seconds": (Date.now() /1000) - 86400 * 4.

new Date().toISOString() A text based representation of "now". Use this format if you want to insert the date as a string in ISO 8601 format, rather than leaving it as a date object.

Example:
https://myservice/endpoint?duration={{timeframe.isoDuration}}

Note:

By default, only Dashboard Server administrators can create and edit Web API queries in the Web API tile.

Headers & Data:

Headers:
The HTTP header. Here you can enter properties for authentication or specify that the content type of the return data needs to be JSON. Please refer to the API documentation of the API you are using to see what properties are supported.

Data:

If you are using a GETrequest:
Here you can add query string parameters to your query string.

If you are using a POSTrequest:

Here you can add additional data to the request body of your query. You can send query string parameters as a form, and other data in the content type json, xml, or text.

Please refer to the API documentation of the API you are using to see what parameters and content types are supported.

Using the page timeframe in headers or data

You can use the mustache picker to insert page timeframe variables.

Please refer to the API documentation of the API you are using to see what kind of time format is required as a value.

Available formats for inserting the page timeframe via the mustache picker

Dynamic page timeframe formats

When you use page timeframe variables, the dynamic page timeframe will be inserted as a string in your search query, script, field, or wherever you use the variable.

`timeframe.isoDuration`	Use this format when you want to insert the page timeframe according to the ISO standard for time ranges (period of time). Example: When them page timeframe is set to "last 12 hours" the string `PT12H` is inserted.
`timeframe.isoStart`	Use this format to insert a "from" time when you want the starting point to be "now minus page timeframe". The page timeframe will be inserted as a starting time according to the ISO 8601 standard. Example: When the page timeframe is set to "last 12 hours" the starting time is "now minus 12 hours".
`timeframe.isoEnd`	Use this format to insert a "to" time when you need to specify the end time. The end time is always "now". The current time will be inserted according to the ISO 8601 standard.
`timeframe.unixStart`	Use this format to insert a "from" time when you want the starting point to be "now minus page timeframe". The page timeframe will be inserted as a starting time in milliseconds according to the UNIX standard. Example: When the page timeframe is set to "last 12 hours", the starting time is "now minus 12 hours".
`timeframe.unixEnd`	Use this format to insert a "to" time when you need to specify the end time. The end time is always "now". The current time will be inserted in milliseconds according to the Unix standard.
`Math.floor(timeframe.UnixStart / 1000)`	Use this format when you want to use the `unixStart` time but need to convert it from milliseconds to seconds.
`Math.floor(timeframe.UnixEnd / 1000)`	Use this format when you want to use the `unixEnd` time but need to convert it from milliseconds to seconds.

Fixed timeframe formats (without using the dynamic page timeframe)

Date.now() - 86400 * 1000 *14

This is a template format to express the fixed timeframe "14 days ago" (now minus 14 days in milliseconds). You can use this template to create your own fixed timeframe.

How to read the parameters of the template:

Date.now() = the current date and time (now) in milliseconds
86400 = 24 hours in seconds
1000 = converts the seconds into milliseconds
14 = 14 days

If you want to use a fixed timeframe in seconds, you need to convert the Date.now() into seconds, for example "4 days ago in seconds": (Date.now() /1000) - 86400 * 4.

new Date().toISOString() A text based representation of "now". Use this format if you want to insert the date as a string in ISO 8601 format, rather than leaving it as a date object.

Example for using the page timeframe as a query parameter:

You want the results of your query to adapt to the page timeframe. The API supports the from query parameter, so you can use it to select results starting from whatever page timeframe is currently set. You want to query an API which uses milliseconds to denote a time range. This means you can use the unixStart page timeframe format.

Data

Name: from

value: {{timeframe.unixStart}}

Example for using the page timeframe in the request body:

You want your POST request to create a table of sales data that adapts to the page timeframe, because you want to see closed and won opportunities within the time period of the currently set page timeframe. The API for your CRM system supports plain text request bodies and ISO-format date strings, which means you can use the isoStart page timeframe format to filter out opportunities that are older than the currently set page timeframe.

Content type: text

Body:

Copy

Select Name, Amount, CLoseDate
FROM Opportunity
WHERE StageName = 'Closed Won' AND CloseDate > {{timeframe.isoStart}}

Note:

By default, only Dashboard Server administrators can create and edit Web API queries in the Web API tile.

Response Data:
This is where you enter the location of the results set that is returned. The response data box shows you a preview of the data returned, so you can check the location of the data returned, and use that in the key path.

Configure the settings for your visualization:

Settings for Scalars

Scalar

Font size	Allows you to set the font size of the value in the tile.
Unit	Allows you to add a unit to the value displayed in the Scalar tile. For example, if your value shows a time in milliseconds, you can enter "ms" or if your value shows pageviews, you can enter "pageviews".
Value formatter	Allows you to format the value by using the mustache picker. For example, you can round the value up or down or convert it.

Color

Conditional formatting:

You can display the scalar in different colors based on conditions you defined here. For example, you can display the scalar in green when the value is below 100 and in red when it is above 100.

Click on add to configure a condition.
Click on select color.... to open the color picker. Select the color for this condition.
Enter your condition in the field next to the color. You can use the value property and manipulate it with JavaScript String and Regex APIs. When you click on the mustache picker, you'll get some examples:
- Value is greater than something, less than something, etc.
  For example: {{value < 10}} (The color you picked will be used if the value is less than 10)
- Value is present in the result
  For example: value.IndexOf('error') != -1 (The color you picked will be used if the string value "error" is present in the results)
- Value matches one of the regular expressions you defined
  For example: value.match(/healthy|good|up/) (The color you picked will be used if the string values are healthy, good, or up)

Display:

Here you decide how the color is used:

Tile background	Highlight the tile in the color you defined.
Text foreground	Display the text in the color you defined.

Link options

Allows you to turn the graph item(s) into links. You can either enter plain text to create a fixed link (URL always stays the same) or use dynamic properties to create a dynamic link.

Dynamic links make use of dynamic properties which are inserted as part of the URL. This creates a template URL that will be resolved to an actual URL based on the items properties.

For example, if you want to link to tickets in your ticket system and the format of the URL for tickets in your system is https://www.my-system/ticket-123, where 123 is the ticket ID, you can use the dynamic property that contains the ticket ID and enter the dynamic URL https://www.my-system/ticket-{{ticketID}}.

For scalars, you can only use the dynamic property value in dynamic links, which means the link changes when the value of the scalar changes. Since a scalar is just one item, it would also make sense to use a fixed link, for example the link to the website of which you are displaying the response time.
For status icon or bars and the rows of a grid, you usually want to use a dynamic link since you get multiple items or rows that represent different things. You can use any of the dynamic properties the mustache picker offers you.

Settings for Grids

Grid columns

Grid columns opens the grid designer, where you can show or hide columns, change the order of columns, edit column names or add custom columns.

How to use the Grid Designer

Grid options

Row link	Allows you to turn the graph item(s) into links. You can either enter plain text to create a fixed link (URL always stays the same) or use dynamic properties to create a dynamic link. Dynamic links make use of dynamic properties which are inserted as part of the URL. This creates a template URL that will be resolved to an actual URL based on the items properties. For example, if you want to link to tickets in your ticket system and the format of the URL for tickets in your system is `https://www.my-system/ticket-123`, where `123` is the ticket ID, you can use the dynamic property that contains the ticket ID and enter the dynamic URL `https://www.my-system/ticket-{{ticketID}}`. For scalars, you can only use the dynamic property `value` in dynamic links, which means the link changes when the value of the scalar changes. Since a scalar is just one item, it would also make sense to use a fixed link, for example the link to the website of which you are displaying the response time. For status icon or bars and the rows of a grid, you usually want to use a dynamic link since you get multiple items or rows that represent different things. You can use any of the dynamic properties the mustache picker offers you. Examples for URLs with dynamic properties for popular APIs Dynamic mustache properties and values you need to change according to your instance are highlighted in bold. ServiceNow incidents: `https://<your-instance>.service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=%2Fincident.do%3Fsys_id%3D{{sys_id}}` PagerDuty incidents: `{{incident.html_url}}` Azure DevOps projects: `https://dev.azure.com/<your-instance>/{{name}}` Azure DevOps builds: `https://dev.azure.com/<your-instance>/_build/results?buildId={{id}}` Zendesk tickets: `https://<your-instance>.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/{{id}}` Azure Application Insights `https://portal.azure.com/#@squaredup.net/resource/{{ResourceId}}` Important note if you are using properties with hyphens for row links Property names that contain hyphens (for example `properties.name-with-hyphens`) can't be processed due to a JavaScript limitation. If you want to use a property that contains a hyphen, you have two options: If you have access to the data source and can change the name of the property, change the name of the property to a name without hyphens. For example, if your Elasticsearch query uses a property (an aggregation, a grouping or any other property you want to use) with a name that contains a hyphen, you can either access your Elasticsearch instance and change the name there or you can overwrite the name in the query dsl field. If you can't change the name of the property, you need to enter the property name in the following format: Original property name: `{{properties.name-with-hyphens.value}}` New format: `{{properties['name-with-hyphens'].value}}`
Show column headers	You can choose between showing or hiding the header for all columns.
Expand rows automatically	Activate this checkbox if you want the row height to expand automatically based on the row content, for example if your grid uses increased text size, images, emojis etc.
Limit number of results displayed	You can set a limit of the initial number of results displayed in the grid. If you have set a limit and there are more results to display, users will see a "show all" button below the grid.
Font size	Use the slider to adjust the font size.

Tip for column sizing: You can change the column width directly in the grid by clicking on the divider lines between columns and dragging them to the width you want. You need to show column headers (by activating the show column headers check box) to be able to change the column width.
Resizing columns while in edit mode affects how the grid looks by default when users open the dashboard. Users can temporarily change the column sizes by dragging them, but those changes only last until they leave the page.

Settings for Line Graphs

Data mapping

grouping

Here you can define a group to take a closer look at the graph's value(s). Each item in the group will create its own series (a line in a line graph, a bar in a bar graph etc.). For example, if you group the value response time by servers on a line graph, you'll see one line per server, each line showing you the response time for this one server over time.

To enter your grouping, you have to find the property that contains it. You can use the mustache picker to see every property returned from the response data. Pick the property that contains the grouping you want your graph to show.

Note: If you don't use the mustache picker and type in your property yourself, make sure you add the mustache {{}} to the property name. Otherwise, you'll either get an error message or the property will be interpreted as a static value and be the same for every result.

Note: If your grouping needs more than one property, you can combine multiple properties. For example, if you want to see the disk space on the c: drive of different computers, your grouping needs to be c: drive and computer. You can combine them in one mustache {{PropertyForComputer + PropertyForC:Drive}} or keep them in separate mustaches {{PropertyForComputer} {PropertyForC:Drive}}.

timestamp

Here you define the time series for the x-axis of the graph.

To enter your timestamp, you have to find that property that contains it. You can use the mustache picker to see every property from the response data. Pick the property that contains the timestamp you want the graph to use.

Note: Timestamps that are supported are Unix timestamp in milliseconds or ISO 8601 date format. If the returned timestamp is in seconds rather than milliseconds, you need to convert it into milliseconds (for example, {{starttime*1000}}).

metrics

Here you define which value the graph will show. For example, if you want to see the response time of different servers, your metric value would be response time. If you want to see the number of tickets, your metric value would be number (of tickets).

To enter your metric value, you have to find the property that contains that value. You can use the mustache picker to see every property returned from the response data. Pick the property that contains the value you want your graph to show

Note: The metric value must be a numeric object. If an API returns values as strings, you can convert them from a string to a numeric object with the parseFloat() function.

Info: You can manipulate the value by adding operators to add, substract, divide or multiply. You can pick additonal properties from the response data or insert plain text for those functions. For example, if you want to multiply two properties you can do that by entering {{PropertyForMetricValue*PropertyForOtherMetricValue2}} . If you want to change Kb in Gb you can divide the value by 1024: {{PropertyForMetricValue/1024}}. You can also use more elaborate functions according to JavaScript syntax.

Extract multiple metrics:

If you want to see more than one value, you can tick the "Extract multiple metrics" checkbox. You can manipulate those metrics exactly like the first metric you chose. The metrics won't affect each other, they are all treated as separate metrics. Each value will get its own series (a line in a line graph, a bar in a bar graph etc.).

Top N

Here you can define a limit for the number of results you want to see. Activate the limit number of results displayed checkbox to enter a limit for results. You can choose if this limit should be applied from the top ranking results down (ascending, default option) or from the bottom ranking results up (descending).

Data range

The Data Range option allows you to choose the range of data the graph will display. For line graphs, this means the data on the y-axis.

percentage	Shows 0 to 100
fit to data	Shows the data minimum to data maximum
fit to data (from zero)	Shows from 0 to the data maximum
custom	Allows you to specify the min and max
custom fit	Allows you to specify the min and max limits, so that data outside your settings will not be shown. If all the data falls within your specified ranges then the y-axis range will fit to the data rather than your caps.

Display

Height: Allows you to set the height of the tile with a slider.

Label

Allows you to change the label of the results.

Show legend:

Allows you to show or hide the legend of the graph.

Label:

auto

Choose this option if you want to use the default label that has been created automatically.

custom

Here you can change the label to a custom label. You can use static text and dynamic properties. Use the mustache picker to select dynamic properties from the response data to use them as labels.

For more information see How to use Custom Labels

Settings for Sparklines

Data mapping

grouping

timestamp

Here you define the time series for the x-axis of the graph.

metrics

Note: The metric value must be a numeric object. If an API returns values as strings, you can convert them from a string to a numeric object with the parseFloat() function.

Extract multiple metrics:

Data Range

The Data Range option allows you to choose the range of data the graph will display. For line graphs, this means the data on the y-axis.

percentage	Shows 0 to 100
fit to data	Shows the data minimum to data maximum
fit to data (from zero)	Shows from 0 to the data maximum
custom	Allows you to specify the min and max
custom fit	Allows you to specify the min and max limits, so that data outside your settings will not be shown. If all the data falls within your specified ranges then the y-axis range will fit to the data rather than your caps.

Sort

Sort allows you to change the order of the results displayed. You can sort by value (ascending or descending) or label (alphabetically ascending or descending).

Label

Allows you to change the label of the results.

auto

Choose this option if you want to use the default label that has been created automatically.

custom

Here you can change the label to a custom label. You can use static text and dynamic properties. Use the mustache picker to select dynamic properties from the response data to use them as labels.

For more information see How to use Custom Labels

Settings for Bar Graphs

Data mapping

data aggregation

Here you can aggregate the results of the return data.

none: No aggregation, use raw data (for example, when the data provided by the API has already been aggregated in some way due to the type of request).

count: Count how many results are returned (for example, when you return a list of unavailable servers, you can count the results to show how many servers are unavailable).

sum: Show the sum of all results (for example, your return data is a list of tickets in various states and you want to know how many tickets there are in total). For sum, you need numeric values. If your return data contains strings, you need to convert them into a numeric value.

grouping

metrics

Note: The metric value must be a numeric object. If an API returns values as strings, you can convert them from a string to a numeric object with the parseFloat() function.

Extract multiple metrics:

Data Range

The Data Range option allows you to choose the range of data the graph will display. For line graphs, this means the data on the y-axis.

percentage	Shows 0 to 100
fit to data	Shows the data minimum to data maximum
fit to data (from zero)	Shows from 0 to the data maximum
custom	Allows you to specify the min and max
custom fit	Allows you to specify the min and max limits, so that data outside your settings will not be shown. If all the data falls within your specified ranges then the y-axis range will fit to the data rather than your caps.

Sort

Sort allows you to change the order of the results displayed. You can sort by value (ascending or descending) or label (alphabetically ascending or descending).

Label

Allows you to change the label of the results.

auto

Choose this option if you want to use the default label that has been created automatically.

custom

Here you can change the label to a custom label. You can use static text and dynamic properties. Use the mustache picker to select dynamic properties from the response data to use them as labels.

For more information see How to use Custom Labels

Color

Here you can enable or disable graph color matching.

See How to enable graph color matching.

Settings for Donuts

Data mapping

data aggregation

Here you can aggregate the results of the return data.

none: No aggregation, use raw data (for example, when the data provided by the API has already been aggregated in some way due to the type of request).

count: Count how many results are returned (for example, when you return a list of unavailable servers, you can count the results to show how many servers are unavailable).

grouping

metrics

Note: The metric value must be a numeric object. If an API returns values as strings, you can convert them from a string to a numeric object with the parseFloat() function.

Extract multiple metrics:

Sort

Sort allows you to change the order of the results displayed. You can sort by value (ascending or descending) or label (alphabetically ascending or descending).

Display

Size mode:

Default	Displays the donut scaled to the height of the tile.
Fill	Enlarges the donut to use the whole width of the tile. If you chose the fill option and show the legend, you can define the size of the legend with a slider.

Show legend:

Allows you to show or hide the legend of the graph.

Display mode:

Allows you to switch between displaying absolute values or percentages.

Color palette:

Here you can choose between different color palettes.

Note: If there are more items than colors, the colors repeat from the beginning.

Tip for displaying priorities or health states: If you want to display priorities or health states from a data source that doesn't enrich the data with information about priority or health (like the SQL tile or external APIs), use the custom color option and map the results to the correct color. This way, you can make sure that healthy or low priority results are displayed in green, unhealthy or high priority results are displayed in red, etc. If you use the color palettes Priorities, Health1, or Health2 the colors get assigned depending on how the results are sorted, which doesn't guarantee that the colors make sense for the priority or state they represent.

General	10 different colors without specific meaning
Priorities	5 different colors representing 5 different priority states
Health1	3 different colors representing 3 different health states (red=unhealthy, green=healthy, gray=unknown)
Health2	4 different colors representing 4 different health states (red=critical, orange=unhealthy, green=healthy, gray=unknown)
Pastel	10 different pastel colors without specific meaning
Blue	4 different shades of blue from dark to light
Orange	4 different shades of orange from dark to light
Green	4 different shades of green from dark to light
Pink	4 different shades of pink from dark to light
Custom	Here you can choose colors and map them to a value. Click on Select color... to select a color and enter the name of the value that you want to display in that color. Make sure you spell the value's name correctly (case-sensitive), otherwise the color won't be assigned to it. Note if your color mapping doesn't work (color stays gray) If you entered the value's name correctly (case-sensitive) and your mapping still doesn't work, check if the mapping value contains leading or trailing spaces. Try to enter the value with and without those spaces. Alternatively, you can remove spaces from the mustache expression and enter the values without spaces. Example: Mustache expression with leading and trailing spaces in the values: `{{#if Status == "1" }} Healthy {{elseif Status == "2" }} Down {{elseif Status == "3" }} Warning {{/if}}` Mustache expression without spaces in the values: `{{#if Status == "1" }}Healthy{{elseif Status == "2" }}Down{{elseif Status == "3" }}Warning{{/if}}`

Settings for Status Icons

Data mapping

Here you map the status information from your return data to the states of the status icons or blocks. Since every API returns data in a different format, you need to tell the tile where to find the status information and how to interpret it.

State property:
Here you tell Dashboard Serverwhere to find the status information in the return data.
Use the mustache picker to select the property from your return data that contains the status information, for example {{status}}.
Note: If you don't use the mustache picker and type in your property yourself, make sure you add the mustache {{}} to the property name. Otherwise, you'll either get an error message or the property will be interpreted as a static value and be the same for every result.
Defining custom states
If your return data doesn't contain a specific state property or you want to use your own categories, you can use JavaScript to define states. This allows you to take your return data and define something like "I want result x (number of open tickets, response time, etc.) to be considered as healthy, otherwise the result should be considered unhealthy."
JavaScript examples for creating custom states
Defining simple custom states
Use case:
Your API returns data with a response time (for example, you monitor servers in Pingdom). You want a response time of over 500 ms to be considered as "Warning", anything else should be considered as "Ok".
Copy
{{lastresponsetime >= "500" ? "WARNING" : "OK" }}
Mapping:
Healthy OK
Warning WARNING
Result:
You'll see yellow blocks or icons when the response time is over 500 ms and green blocks or icons if the response time is below 500 ms. There will be no red icons or blocks since there is no mapping for "Critical". There will also be no gray blocks since there will be no "Unknown" state, because the return data will always be either below or over 500 ms.

Displaying only results of a specific type
Use case:
Your API returns data with a type and a priority (for example, tickets in Zendesk). You only want to see high priority cases. You consider a case high priority when the two fields "type: problem" and "priority: normal" apply to the result. All other results should be ignored.
Copy
{{#if type == "problem" && priority == "normal"}}HIGHPRIORITY{{else}}IGNORE{{/if}}
Mapping:
Critical HIGHPRIORITY
The checkbox hide tiles where the state is unknown is activated.
Result:
You'll see red blocks for the cases you defined as high priority. You'll see no green, yellow, or gray blocks, since they have not been mapped and unknown states are hidden.

Defining custom states based on multiple conditions
Use case:
Your API returns data with a state and a response time (for example, you monitor servers in Pingdom). You want to define states based on those criteria. If the status is "up", you consider it healthy as long as it is below 65 ms response time. If it is "up" and over 65 ms, you want it to be considered as "warning" in Dashboard Server (yellow block or icon). If the state in the response data is "warning" instead of "up", you also want it to be considered as "warning". If the state is "down", you want it to be "critical" in Dashboard Server.
Copy
{{status === 'up' && lastresponsetime < 65 ? 'Green' : status === 'up' && lastresponsetime > 65 ? 'Yellow' : status === 'warning' ? 'Yellow' : status === 'down' ? 'Red' : 'unknown'}}
Mapping:
Healthy Green
Warning Yellow
Critical Red
Result:
You'll see green blocks or icons (Healthy) for results with the status "up" and a response time below 65 ms. If the status is "up" but the response time is above 65 ms, you'll see a yellow block or icon (Warning).
If the status in the response data is "warning" instead of "up", you'll also see a yellow block, since you defined this also a yellow and yellow is mapped to Warning.
If the status is "down", you'll see a red block (Critical).
Any other results that don't fit in the categories you defined will be displayed as a gray block or icon (Unknown).
Tip: Since there are two possible causes for the Warning state, you want to be able to tell if the status or the response time caused the issue. Use a custom label or sublabel that shows you the status and the response time in your status icon or block to be able to see what caused the warning.

Defining custom states with a date and time threshold
Use case:
Your API returns data with a date and time, as well as a type and a priority (for example, tickets in Zendesk). You want tickets of type problem with a normal priority to be acknowledged within 30 mins, which is why you want to see tickets older than 30 mins highlighted in yellow and older than 45 mins highlighted in red.
Copy
{{#if Date.now() - Date.parse(created_at) >= 1800000 && type == "problem" && priority == "normal" }}30MINS{{elseif Date.now() - Date.parse(created_at) >= 2700000 && type == "problem" && priority == "normal" }}45MINS{{else}}OK{{/if}}
Mapping:
Healthy OK
Warning 30MINS
Critical 45MINS
Result:
You'll see tickets that have been created today (Date.now()), are older than 30 mins (1800000 ms), and are of the type problem with a normal priority as yellow blocks or icons since you mapped 30MINS to Warning. When those tickets are older than 45 mins (2700000 ms), they'll turn red since they are mapped to critical. All other tickets will be displayed as green blocks or icons because all other tickets fall into the OK category that is mapped to Healthy.
There will be no gray (unknown) blocks or icons since all tickets will fall into one of the custom states you defined.
State mapping:
Here you tell Dashboard Serverhow you want the status information to be interpreted.
Map the values of the property from your return data to the states of the status icons or blocks. For example, when the {{status}} property from your return data can have the values good, averageand bad, your mapping would look like this:
Healthy good
Warning average
Critical bad
Any value that is not mapped to a state will be interpreted as unknown.
The mapped state values define the color of the status icons or blocks:
Healthy green
Warning yellow
Critical red
Unknown gray

Link options

item link:

Allows you to turn the graph item(s) into links. You can either enter plain text to create a fixed link (URL always stays the same) or use dynamic properties to create a dynamic link.

Dynamic links make use of dynamic properties which are inserted as part of the URL. This creates a template URL that will be resolved to an actual URL based on the items properties.

For scalars, you can only use the dynamic property value in dynamic links, which means the link changes when the value of the scalar changes. Since a scalar is just one item, it would also make sense to use a fixed link, for example the link to the website of which you are displaying the response time.
For status icon or bars and the rows of a grid, you usually want to use a dynamic link since you get multiple items or rows that represent different things. You can use any of the dynamic properties the mustache picker offers you.

Label

Allows you to change the label of the results.

name

Choose this option if you want to use the default label that has been created automatically.

custom

Here you can change the label to a custom label. You can use static text and dynamic properties. Use the mustache picker to select dynamic properties from the response data to use them as labels.

For more information see How to use Custom Labels

Sublabel

Allows you to add a sublabel of the results.

custom

Here you can change the label to a custom label. You can use static text and dynamic properties. Use the mustache picker to select dynamic properties from the response data to use them as labels.

For more information see How to use Custom Labels

none By default, no sublabels are shown.

Sort

Sort allows you to change the order of the results displayed. You can also group them by their characteristics.

default	By default, the sorting of the blocks or icons depends on the data source. This can be alphabetical sorting or the order in which data comes back from an API request.
sort by	Sort by label or health state, ascending or descending
group by	Group by label or health state, ascending or descending

Image

Here you can choose one of the provided images or upload your own.
Tip: If you want a different selection of maps, you can download more at https://freevectormaps.com/

Supported image formats: png, jpg, jpeg, gif, tif, tiff. svg, bmp
Tip: SVG images resize best since they are vector images.

File size limit: 10MB

Image size: Images fill the size of the tile, which means you can resize the image by adjusting the tile's size. The size of the tile also depends on the screen the dashboard is being viewed on.

Icons

Here you can customize the icons on the image:

You can change the size of the icons with the slider
You can change the shape of the icons (square or circle)
You can drag the icons on the image into position

Display styles for Status icons

This setting is not done in a panel, you can change the display style even after you finished configuring the tile.

You can use toggle zoom button at the top right of the tile to change between the different ways Status icons can be displayed.

One long list
Column list
Icons only

Settings for Status Blocks

Data mapping

State property:
Here you tell Dashboard Serverwhere to find the status information in the return data.
Use the mustache picker to select the property from your return data that contains the status information, for example {{status}}.
Note: If you don't use the mustache picker and type in your property yourself, make sure you add the mustache {{}} to the property name. Otherwise, you'll either get an error message or the property will be interpreted as a static value and be the same for every result.
Defining custom states
If your return data doesn't contain a specific state property or you want to use your own categories, you can use JavaScript to define states. This allows you to take your return data and define something like "I want result x (number of open tickets, response time, etc.) to be considered as healthy, otherwise the result should be considered unhealthy."
JavaScript examples for creating custom states
Defining simple custom states
Use case:
Your API returns data with a response time (for example, you monitor servers in Pingdom). You want a response time of over 500 ms to be considered as "Warning", anything else should be considered as "Ok".
Copy
{{lastresponsetime >= "500" ? "WARNING" : "OK" }}
Mapping:
Healthy OK
Warning WARNING
Result:
You'll see yellow blocks or icons when the response time is over 500 ms and green blocks or icons if the response time is below 500 ms. There will be no red icons or blocks since there is no mapping for "Critical". There will also be no gray blocks since there will be no "Unknown" state, because the return data will always be either below or over 500 ms.

Displaying only results of a specific type
Use case:
Your API returns data with a type and a priority (for example, tickets in Zendesk). You only want to see high priority cases. You consider a case high priority when the two fields "type: problem" and "priority: normal" apply to the result. All other results should be ignored.
Copy
{{#if type == "problem" && priority == "normal"}}HIGHPRIORITY{{else}}IGNORE{{/if}}
Mapping:
Critical HIGHPRIORITY
The checkbox hide tiles where the state is unknown is activated.
Result:
You'll see red blocks for the cases you defined as high priority. You'll see no green, yellow, or gray blocks, since they have not been mapped and unknown states are hidden.

Defining custom states based on multiple conditions
Use case:
Your API returns data with a state and a response time (for example, you monitor servers in Pingdom). You want to define states based on those criteria. If the status is "up", you consider it healthy as long as it is below 65 ms response time. If it is "up" and over 65 ms, you want it to be considered as "warning" in Dashboard Server (yellow block or icon). If the state in the response data is "warning" instead of "up", you also want it to be considered as "warning". If the state is "down", you want it to be "critical" in Dashboard Server.
Copy
{{status === 'up' && lastresponsetime < 65 ? 'Green' : status === 'up' && lastresponsetime > 65 ? 'Yellow' : status === 'warning' ? 'Yellow' : status === 'down' ? 'Red' : 'unknown'}}
Mapping:
Healthy Green
Warning Yellow
Critical Red
Result:
You'll see green blocks or icons (Healthy) for results with the status "up" and a response time below 65 ms. If the status is "up" but the response time is above 65 ms, you'll see a yellow block or icon (Warning).
If the status in the response data is "warning" instead of "up", you'll also see a yellow block, since you defined this also a yellow and yellow is mapped to Warning.
If the status is "down", you'll see a red block (Critical).
Any other results that don't fit in the categories you defined will be displayed as a gray block or icon (Unknown).
Tip: Since there are two possible causes for the Warning state, you want to be able to tell if the status or the response time caused the issue. Use a custom label or sublabel that shows you the status and the response time in your status icon or block to be able to see what caused the warning.

Defining custom states with a date and time threshold
Use case:
Your API returns data with a date and time, as well as a type and a priority (for example, tickets in Zendesk). You want tickets of type problem with a normal priority to be acknowledged within 30 mins, which is why you want to see tickets older than 30 mins highlighted in yellow and older than 45 mins highlighted in red.
Copy
{{#if Date.now() - Date.parse(created_at) >= 1800000 && type == "problem" && priority == "normal" }}30MINS{{elseif Date.now() - Date.parse(created_at) >= 2700000 && type == "problem" && priority == "normal" }}45MINS{{else}}OK{{/if}}
Mapping:
Healthy OK
Warning 30MINS
Critical 45MINS
Result:
You'll see tickets that have been created today (Date.now()), are older than 30 mins (1800000 ms), and are of the type problem with a normal priority as yellow blocks or icons since you mapped 30MINS to Warning. When those tickets are older than 45 mins (2700000 ms), they'll turn red since they are mapped to critical. All other tickets will be displayed as green blocks or icons because all other tickets fall into the OK category that is mapped to Healthy.
There will be no gray (unknown) blocks or icons since all tickets will fall into one of the custom states you defined.
State mapping:
Here you tell Dashboard Serverhow you want the status information to be interpreted.
Map the values of the property from your return data to the states of the status icons or blocks. For example, when the {{status}} property from your return data can have the values good, averageand bad, your mapping would look like this:
Healthy good
Warning average
Critical bad
Any value that is not mapped to a state will be interpreted as unknown.
The mapped state values define the color of the status icons or blocks:
Healthy green
Warning yellow
Critical red
Unknown gray

Link options

item link:

Allows you to turn the graph item(s) into links. You can either enter plain text to create a fixed link (URL always stays the same) or use dynamic properties to create a dynamic link.

Dynamic links make use of dynamic properties which are inserted as part of the URL. This creates a template URL that will be resolved to an actual URL based on the items properties.

For scalars, you can only use the dynamic property value in dynamic links, which means the link changes when the value of the scalar changes. Since a scalar is just one item, it would also make sense to use a fixed link, for example the link to the website of which you are displaying the response time.
For status icon or bars and the rows of a grid, you usually want to use a dynamic link since you get multiple items or rows that represent different things. You can use any of the dynamic properties the mustache picker offers you.

Label

Allows you to change the label of the results.

name

Choose this option if you want to use the default label that has been created automatically.

custom

Here you can change the label to a custom label. You can use static text and dynamic properties. Use the mustache picker to select dynamic properties from the response data to use them as labels.

For more information see How to use Custom Labels

Sublabel

Allows you to add a sublabel of the results.

custom

Here you can change the label to a custom label. You can use static text and dynamic properties. Use the mustache picker to select dynamic properties from the response data to use them as labels.

For more information see How to use Custom Labels

none By default, no sublabels are shown.

Sort

Sort allows you to change the order of the results displayed. You can also group them by their characteristics.

default	By default, the sorting of the blocks or icons depends on the data source. This can be alphabetical sorting or the order in which data comes back from an API request.
sort by	Sort by label or health state, ascending or descending
group by	Group by label or health state, ascending or descending

Blocks

Here you can set the number of columns for the blocks, their height and the font size within the blocks.

Click done to save the tile.
The tile now shows data according to your settings.

Paging and limiting the results size

One thing to keep in mind when making queries is that the Web API tile does not support request paging. Some APIs will not return all the query results in a single request (say limiting each request to only 100 items), and require the user to make multiple subsequent requests to get the entire results set. Since there is no standard way of doing this, we are currently unable to support it.

This may mean your tile is only able to display the most recent results, and may be an issue if you are say trying to query for every incident in the system and display a donut showing the counts of incidents in each status. To avoid this, if you need to display summaries either query API endpoints that provide summarised information for you, or make sure you indicate in the tile name/description that this may be only recent results.

If your API does not page requests and instead can return large datasets in a single request, consider adding limits to your query if the API supports it. If your query returns 10,000 results, you may experience a tile that takes a long time to load and display data. Don't show data for all time when the last 30 days will do!

Custom code tips and examples for the Web API tile

How to rename the grouping of Donuts and Bar Graphs

Where to use this code:
You can use this code in Web API tiles for the Donut or Bar Graph visualization.
Open the Data Mapping panel, set the data aggregation to count and enter this code in the Grouping field.

When to use this code:
Let's say you want to group by the field status but aren't happy with the names of the field values. In this example, the values for status are 1,2, and 3 which doesn't tell your users much about the meaning of those values. With this code you can rename them to warning, critical, and healthy to make the values easier to understand:

Copy

{{#if status === 1}}Warning{{elseif status === 2}}Critical{{elseif status === 3}}Healthy{{else}}Unknown{{/if}}

If your field values are not numeric values but strings, you need to wrap them like this:

Copy

{{#if status === "Status A"}}Warning{{elseif status === "Status B"}}Critical{{elseif status === "Status C"}}Healthy{{else}}Unknown{{/if}}

Walkthrough: Configuring the Web API tile to show a JSON placeholder example

http://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/ is a JSON REST API used for testing services and this example demonstrates how you would retrieve data from this API and show it using Dashboard Server.

Browse to http://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts The data shown is a list of posts which we can show in Dashboard Server as a table.
Create a new dashboard and click on the Web API tile.
Select Web API (Grid) and click next.
Leave the scope as it is and click next.
Select generic from the drop down list for the provider, and click next.
Paste the web address from step 1 into the URL box.
For help customizing the columns of data see How to use the Grid Designer
Click done.

The data from the external API is now shown in Dashboard Server.

It is important to note that this data will refresh along with the rest of your dashboard and is great for showing tabular data such as a list of open support tickets or configuration changes.

DS LIVE KB.10.log-347084369.zip
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`Healthy`	OK
`Warning`	WARNING

`Healthy`	Green
`Warning`	Yellow
`Critical`	Red

`Healthy`	OK
`Warning`	30MINS
`Critical`	45MINS

`Healthy`	good
`Warning`	average
`Critical`	bad