A Step-by-Step Guide for Creating a Canvas Dashboard in Grafana

The open-source monitoring and observability platform Grafana is well renowned for its adaptability and extensibility. The capability of leveraging Grafana’s Canvas plugin to build customised dashboards is one of its most potent capabilities. With Canvas, you can create stunning, engaging, and data-rich dashboards that show your metrics and data in interesting and educational ways. In this tutorial, we’ll take you step-by-step through the creation of a Canvas dashboard in Grafana.

Prerequisites

Before you begin creating your Canvas dashboard in Grafana, make sure you have the following prerequisites in place:

Grafana Installed: Ensure that you have Grafana installed and running. You can download and install Grafana from the official Grafana website.

Data Source Configuration: Configure a data source in Grafana that connects to your data. Common data sources include Prometheus, InfluxDB, Elasticsearch, and more. For this tutorial, we’ll assume you have a Prometheus data source set up.

Step 1: Install and Enable the Canvas Plugin

The first step is to install and enable the Canvas plugin if you haven’t already. Here’s how:

• Open your Grafana instance in a web browser and log in.
• Click on the gear icon (⚙️) in the left sidebar to access the “Configuration” menu.
• Select “Plugins” from the menu.
• Search for “Canvas” in the search bar.
• Grafana will prompt you to restart the Grafana server for the changes to take effect. Follow the instructions to do so.

Step 2: Create a New Dashboard

Now that the Canvas plugin is installed and enabled, you can create a new dashboard and start building your Canvas panel:

• Click on the “Create” button in the left sidebar to create a new dashboard.
• In the “New Dashboard” screen, click on the “Add new panel” button.
• In the “Visualization” section, select “Canvas” from the list of panel types.

Step 3: Design Your Canvas Dashboard

With the Canvas panel added to your dashboard, you can start designing your custom dashboard:

• Click on the “Edit” button in the top-right corner of the Canvas panel to open the Canvas editor.
• In the Canvas editor, you can drag and drop elements like text, shapes, images, and data visualizations onto your canvas.
• Configure data visualizations by adding queries and choosing visualization types. You can use your data source (e.g., Prometheus) to fetch data and display it in various ways, such as graphs, tables, or gauges.
• Customize your canvas using the style and layout options available in the editor. You can change colors, fonts, and alignment to create a visually appealing dashboard.
• Add interactivity to your canvas by creating actions like drill-downs, links, and transformations that respond to user interactions.

Elements in Canvas

The various parts you can add to your canvas to build unique visualisations, dashboards, and reports are referred to as elements. These components enable you to show information like as data, text, photos, and other stuff on your canvas.

• Metric: You can display certain data points or metrics from your data sources using the metrics elements. To retrieve the data you wish to display and to alter the visualisation, you can put up queries.
• Text: You can include titles, labels, and descriptive text on your canvas by using text components. The text’s font, size, colour, and orientation can all be changed.
• Rectangles are straightforward shapes that can be utilised as backdrops or dividers. Their size, colour, border, and opacity can all be changed to provide different visual effects.
• Icons : You can include a supported icon on the canvas by using the icon element. Thresholds and value mappings can be used to determine the color of icons.

Connections in Grafana

• Drag from one element’s connection anchor to another to create connections.
• Make connections to the background of the canvas as well.
• When inline editing is enabled, connection anchors are shown when an element is hovered over.
• Directly clicking a connection and pressing the “Delete” or “Backspace” keys will quickly erase it.

Creating a Canvas dashboard in Grafana is a powerful way to visualize and interact with your data. By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can design custom dashboards that meet your specific monitoring and visualization needs. Experiment with different elements, data sources, and interactivity options to unlock the full potential of Canvas in Grafana and gain valuable insights from your data. Happy dashboard designing!

reference : https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/panels-visualizations/visualizations/canvas/