Adaptable user interface

Adaptable user interface

Flexible dashboards

This feature allows users, administrators, and app developers to create custom dashboards, share dashboards, and restrict access to dashboard objects to certain users.

Capabilities include:

• Brand new dashboard creation user interface
• Add numerous types of objects to a dashboard including
  • A sortable list of links (such as saved searches, hosts, sourcetypes, sources, field values, etc.) that can scale to thousands of values
  • Charts, tables, or a set of raw events
  • Red/Green/Yellow threshold based indicators
  • Custom text or html
  • Data from your custom application or external website that is iframe compatible
• Modify the layout of dashboard, specifying the row and column location for individual dashboard objects
• Specify the height and width of dashboard objects
• Configure the browser refresh rate for entire dashboards
• Create fast-loading dashboards by configuring dashboard modules to run off of previously scheduled searches
• Use Splunk dashboard modules such as radio buttons, drop-downs, and form searches to create interactive and dynamic dashboards

Additionally, dashboards are now part of Splunk's new Role-based personalization feature. Capabilities include:

• Users and administrators can share a dashboard with any Splunk user or role, and configure read-only or read and write access
• Administrators can restrict access to certain dashboards of a per user basis

Learn more about how to create a simple dashboard in Splunk Web in the User Manual.

Learn more about creating and working with more complex dashboards in the Developer Manual.

Easy UI customizations

This feature includes an entirely redesigned user interface framework that allows app developers and administrators to reconfigure Splunk Web, without the need to write custom code. This feature introduces the concept of Splunk "views" where developers can flexibly reconfigure Splunk's interface layout and interaction by simply editing a configuration file.

App developers and administrators can:

• Create new views by adding and removing UI modules (modules include items like the search bar, timeline, field picker, time picker, events viewer, dropdown boxes, charts and tables, etc.)
• Rearrange modules (horizontally and vertically) to create custom layouts for each view
• Resize certain modules (such as a chart or a table)
• Create a custom text or html module
• Create interactive views that include pre-defined searches enabled by drop-down boxes or radio button selectors
• Create custom form searches populated by a pre-defined options or a dynamically generated list
• Perform administrative tasks, such as configuring new inputs, from the search interface itself

In addition to views, app developers can also configure Splunk's new menu bar when creating apps:

• Add or remove menu items such as dashboards, views, saved searches, or reports from the core search interface
• Add a custom menu item, such as a set of links to a site outside of Splunk, or a drop down menu that links to a custom set of saved searches or other views within Splunk

App developers and OEMs can customize the look and feel of apps:

• Change colors of menu items, interface fonts, lines, and colors by creating a custom CSS template/skin
• Highlight events based on eventtype using a custom CSS template (similar to event decorations in previous versions of Splunk)
• Modify or remove the Splunk logo to customize Splunk to your company's specific application
• Utilize a comprehensive set of Splunk's REST API's, to write a custom module that can be incorporated in views and apps

Learn more about building a custom view in the Developer Manual.

App navigator

This feature includes the ability for Splunk users, administrators, and app developers to view and work with Splunk apps as distinct entities.

• Users can easily switch between applications loaded into Splunk through a new Launcher interface and automatically load a set of views, saved searches, dashboards, inputs, or knowledge associated with an application
• Developers can specify the objects belonging to an app, as well as an app's look and feel such that they appear distinct from Splunk's core search interface
• Administrators can enable/disable apps, and limit access to certain apps on a per user basis

Benefits

For users:

• Switch app contexts and see only what is relevant to the current app, making it substantially easier for the user to find relevant saved searches, dashboards, fields etc.
• Dashboards load quickly due to customizable refresh rates for each dashboard module
• Get one-click access to data stored in Splunk by creating custom lists of saved searches, hosts, sources, field values, etc.
• Sort through lists alphabetically or by frequency
  • For example, quickly sort through a list of users to find the most active users on a system, and with a single click find answers without knowledge of the search language or field types
• Customizable dashboard layouts allow users to compare charts side-by-side for faster problem identification
• Share custom created dashboards with other users

For administrators and app developers:

• Administer several Splunk apps from a single Splunk instance and limit user access to a particular apps on a granular level
• Customize different search views for Splunk users that have different needs. For example:
  • Help desk support personnel may be offered a view with only a form search and without the traditional search box or field picker.
  • Marketing personnel may be offered a view that contains a drop-down that allows the user to choose from a set of saved searches and displays the corresponding chart below it, without the need to show events
  • The options are endless!
• Create more granular views of data by applying filters on the what content certain users can view, or limit their interaction by eliminating functionality (such as free-form search) by creating a new view
• Make Splunk more user friendly to less technical users by simplifying the user interface and menus or including custom text/html modules to guide the user
• Create applications with their own unique search configurations and style. For example application could contain a custom set of scripted inputs, field extractions, eventtypes, tags, multiple search views, a custom application menu and its own skin
• Create custom, secure dashboards for different type of users within Splunk
  • For example, create different dashboard views for analysts, marketing, and management
• Integrate data from other internal applications or external websites easily into Splunk, allowing users a more integrated view into data
• Prevent unauthorized users from editing dashboards

For OEMs:

• Integrate your product with Splunk by creating custom modules to add to the Splunk interface, modifying the Splunk skin or logo, or by creating search "views" for different type of customers.

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