Create specialized unified analysis pages

Dynatrace unified analysis pages bring all observability data and relevant analytical tools for effective analysis and troubleshooting into context. When exploring metrics, events, logs, and metadata for a problematic, domain-specific entity, you will find every observability signal related to this entity on one page.

  • The host overview page is an example of a unified analysis page available in most environments.
  • See the unified analysis step in the WMI extension tutorial to learn more about creating unified analysis pages.
  • See this video to learn how you can build your own unified analysis page from start to finish.
    Introduction to Dynatrace Unified Analysis: Going beyond Dashboards

Unified analysis pages come in two types:

  • List screen
    • Browse all instances of an entity type
  • Details screen
    • View all observability signals attached to a particular entity instance in the context

List screen

The list screen lets you browse all instances of a specific entity type. In most environments, you can list your hosts using the unified analysis list screen (for example, https://abc1234.live.dynatrace.com/ui/entity/list/host).

If your extension defines a custom topology (entity types and relations), the default unified analysis list screen is created automatically. Use the following URL to access it: <your-environment-url>/ui/entity/list/<entity-type-name> (for example, https://abc1234.live.dynatrace.com/ui/entity/list/syn:diskmanager).

The unified analysis screen definition starts with the top-level screens node in your extension YAML file. Refer to the extension schema for a full list of available options.

In the example below, we use the unified analysis page definition from the Synology DiskStation topology extraction extension.

screens:
  - entityType: syn:diskmanager
    listSettings:
      staticContent:
        showGlobalFilter: true
        header:
          title: "Synology Diskmanagers"
          description: "This pages shows all monitored Synology Diskmanagers"
          icon: server
      layout:
        autoGenerate: true

The static content section activates the pre-built list screen UI widgets such as navigation breadcrumbs, header, and smart filter bars.

In the header section, you can define the page title, page description, and the icon displayed in the upper-left corner. Select a Dynatrace Barista icon.

You can define breadcrumbs leading to your unified analysis page.

Screen layout

You can choose between automatic page layout (autoGenerate: true) or customize the layout of list screen components such as chart groups or entity lists.

Filter

Defines whether the filter bar is displayed at the top of the list screen.

Details screen

The entity details screens bring all observability signals attached to an entity into context. Like the list screen, a details screen is automatically generated for every entity in your environment. To access the details screen, drill down from the list screen, or use the following URL: <your-environment-url>/ui/entity/<entity-id>. Without any configuration, the details screen contains cards with the properties and tags attributed to the entity, a problems card, and basic charts for all the metrics collected for the entity.

To customize the details screen, start with the detailsSettings child node of screens. In the example below from the Synology DiskStation topology extraction extension, we enable all default pre-built web UI widgets available for a details screen, disable automatic layout, and reference two cards: a charts card and an entities list card.

detailsSettings:
      staticContent:
        showProblems: true
        showProperties: true
        showTags: true
        showGlobalFilter: true
        showAddTag: true
      layout:
        autoGenerate: false
        cards:
          - key: cpu_mem
            type: CHART_GROUP
          - key: disks
            type: ENTITIES_LIST

The cards are referenced by their key in the layout section and defined later in the extension YAML file using the charts cards.

Charts cards

The charts cards enable you to visualize the specified metrics in dedicated charts.

  • The metricSelector expression specifies the metrics your chart is based on. For more information, see Metrics API - Metric selector. The examples below use simple metric selector expressions referring directly to the metric keys.
  • The visualizationType defines the type for your chart: a graph chart GRAPH_CHART, a pie chart PIE_CHART, or a single value SINGLE_VALUE. If you don't specify the visualization type, the graph chart is rendered by default. For more information, see Visualization types

Entities list card

The entities list card displays other entities that are related to the focused entity. The YAML file below lists all Synology disks mapped to an instance of DiskStation Manager on which the details screen focuses.

  • The entitySelectorTemplate expression specifies the entities to list on the card. For more information, see Environment API v2 - Entity selector.
  • The expression type(syn:disk),fromRelationships.runsOn($(entityConditions)) lists the entities of type syn:disk that have a relationship of from direction and runsOn type to the syn:diskmanager represented via the $(entityConditions) placeholder that stands for a focused entity.
entitiesListCards:
      - key: disks
        displayName: Synology disks
        pageSize: 10
        displayCharts: false
        entitySelectorTemplate: "type(syn:disk),fromRelationships.runsOn($(entityConditions))"
        displayIcons: true
        enableDetailsExpandability: true
        numberOfVisibleCharts: 2

The relation between syn:disk and syn:diskmanager is defined in the topology section of the extension YAML file:

relationships:
  - fromType: "syn:disk"
    typeOfRelation: "RUNS_ON"
    toType: "syn:diskmanager"
    sources:
    - sourceType: "Metrics"
      condition: "$prefix(telegraf.hrStorageTable)"

The above unified analysis page definition for the Synology DiskStation extension results in the following details screen.

Unified analysis example

Visualization types

The visualizationType defines the type for your chart:

  • graph chart: GRAPH_CHART
  • pie chart: PIE_CHART
  • single value: SINGLE_VALUE

If you don't specify the visualization type, the graph chart is rendered by default.

Graph chart

The graph chart type renders the graph visualization in your unified analysis page.

For graph charts, you can configure:

  • display name
  • color scheme: DEFAULT, BLUE, ROYALBLUE, PURPLE, YELLOW, TURQUOISE, ORANGE, GREEN, or RED
  • series type: COLUMN, LINE, or AREA

Refer to the extension schema for a full list of available options.

In this example, we specify two charts:

  • CPU displays three CPU-related metrics
  • Memory displays the available memory.
chartsCards:
      - key: cpu_mem
        displayName: "CPU and Memory"
        numberOfVisibleCharts: 2
        charts:
          - displayName: CPU
            visualizationType: GRAPH_CHART
            graphChartConfig:
              visualization:
                themeColor: DEFAULT
                seriesType: LINE
            metrics:
              - metricSelector: telegraf.snmp.ssCpuIdle
              - metricSelector: telegraf.snmp.ssCpuSystem
              - metricSelector: telegraf.snmp.ssCpuUser
          - displayName: Memory
            visualizationType: GRAPH_CHART
            graphChartConfig:
              visualization:
                themeColor: DEFAULT
                seriesType: LINE
            metrics:
              - metricSelector: telegraf.snmp.memTotalFree

The configuration above results in the following visualization on a page:

cpu unified analysis

You can add multiple metrics to the chart as a metrics array. For example:

displayName: CPU usage
conditions: []
visualizationType: GRAPH_CHART
graphChartConfig:
  visualization:
    themeColor: DEFAULT
    seriesType: AREA
  stacked: true
  yAxes:
  - key: percent
    position: LEFT
    visible: true
    min: '0'
    max: '100.00001'
  defaultAggregation: AVG
  metrics:
  - metricSelector: builtin:host.cpu.idle
    visualization:
      themeColor: BLUE
    yAxisKey: percent
  - metricSelector: builtin:host.cpu.iowait
    visualization: {}
    yAxisKey: percent
  - metricSelector: builtin:host.cpu.user
    visualization: {}
    yAxisKey: percent
  - metricSelector: builtin:host.cpu.system
    visualization: {}
    yAxisKey: percent
  - metricSelector: builtin:host.cpu.steal
    visualization: {}
    yAxisKey: percent
  - metricSelector: builtin:host.cpu.other
    visualization: {}
    yAxisKey: percent

The configuration above results in the following visualization on a page:

extensions metrics chart

Pie chart

The pie chart type renders the pie visualization in your unified analysis page.

When you define the metric selector for the pie chart, note that it shows only the first enabled metric from the query and that you also need to explicitly define various fold transformations.

For pie charts, you can configure

  • display name
  • color scheme: DEFAULT, BLUE, ROYALBLUE, PURPLE, YELLOW, TURQUOISE, ORANGE, GREEN, or RED
  • whether the chart legend is shown

Refer to the extension schema for a full list of available options.

chartsCards:
      - key: cpu_mem
        displayName: "My pie chart"
        charts:
          - displayName: Pie chart example
            visualizationType: PIE_CHART
            pieChartConfig:
              metric:
                metricSelector: metric-key
              defaultAggregation: AVG
              showLegend: true
              themeColor: ORANGE

Single-value

The single-value chart type renders the single-value visualization in your unified analysis page: it shows one metric as a single-value chart or tile, and merges all dimensions to a single aggregate.

For a single-value visualization, you can configure:

  • display name
  • whether the card shows sparkline
  • whether the card shows trend

Refer to the extension schema for a full list of available options.

chartsCards:
      - key: cpu_mem
        displayName: "My single value"
        charts:
          - displayName: Single value example
            visualizationType: SINGLE_VALUE
            singleValueConfig:
              metric:
                metricSelector: metric-key
              displayName: Single value example
              defaultAggregation: COUNT
              showSparkline: true
              showTrend: true

Filtering

You can enable filtering to the entity lists of screens created from Extensions 2.0 YAML.

For example, to filter your list by interface name:

filtering:
  entityFilters:
    - displayName: Interface
      filters:
        - type: entityName
          displayName: Name
          freeText: true
          modifier: contains
          defaultSearch: true
          distinct: false
          entityTypes:
            - my:interface
  • filtering—The block that defines the filtering capability.
  • entityFilters—The blocks that define the groups of filters.
  • filters—The actual filters that are part of this group:
    • type—Should reference an attribute of the entity you are filtering. Every entity has entityName as an indexed attribute.
    • displayName—How this filter is labeled within the web UI.
    • freeText—If true, you can type any value instead of just selecting from a list of suggestions. Only indexed attributes such as entityName can offer a list of suggestions.
    • modifier—When freeText is true, modifier defines how the text should be matched against the attribute. Otherwise, this parameter should be omitted. All non-default attributes should match as equals regardless of this option.
    • defaultSearch—If true, the filter is selected by default when you start typing. Only one filter within the filtering block can have this enabled.
    • distinct—If true, only one instance of this filter can be applied. Otherwise, you will see only those entities that match all instances you have applied to the filter.
    • entityTypes—The list of entity types to which this filter applies. If you omit this, your filtering bar will show a spinning wheel because of the incomplete definition.