Docs » Dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud » Share, clone, and mirror dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud

Share, clone, and mirror dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud đź”—

Splunk Observability Cloud dashboards are groupings of charts and visualizations of metrics that make it quick and easy to find the metrics you monitor. Learn how to share, clone and mirror dashboards to suit your specific needs.

See the following sections for more information on how to:

Share a dashboard đź”—

You can share a dashboard from Splunk Observability Cloud in the following ways.

Use the share menu option đź”—

This method lets you share a copy of the current state of a dashboard. Copies include unsaved changes at the time you share, and auto-expire unless the recipient saves them. Sharing a copy is useful for when you make a change that you want to show to team members, but don’t want to modify the original dashboard. In the share menu there are two ways to share the dashboard:

Share directly đź”—

  • To share a dashboard copy, select Share from the Dashboard actions menu. A pop-out window will open with sharing options.

  • To share directly, select Add Recipients and add email addresses or select any available notification integrations as your sharing method.

  • After adding recipients, select Share. Recipients will receive a link to the dashboard copy. When they open it, they can edit and save their copy without affecting the original.

Caution

Administrators can add email addresses of people who aren’t members of your organization. Recipients who aren’t members will be asked to create a user account before they can view the shared content. Be sure the email addresses you enter for non-members are correct, especially if the item you are sharing contains any sensitive or proprietary information.

Use the browser URL đź”—

You can share a dashboard browser URL. However, using the URL shares the original dashboard rather than a copy. Share browser URLs for a dashboard with caution; any changes made to the dashboard are visible to all viewing the dashboard, and can overwrite changes others have made to the dashboard.

Clone a dashboard đź”—

You can clone a dashboard to:

  • Modify a copy of an existing dashboard without making changes to the original.

  • Modify a copy of a read-only or a dashboard for which you don’t have write permission.

To clone a dashboard, follow these steps:

  1. Select Dashboard from the Splunk Observability Cloud home page.

  2. Navigate to the dashboard you want to clone.

  3. Select the Dashboard actions (â‹Ż) menu.

    This image shows the Dashboard actions menu in dashboard view.
  4. Select Save As….

  5. In the Dashboard Name field, enter a name for the cloned dashboard. Use a different name from the original dashboard to avoid multiple dashboards with the same name.

  6. (Optional) Select the Clone Data Links check box if you want to save all local data links from the source dashboard to the cloned dashboard.

  7. From the Dashboard Permissions drop-down menu, configure permission settings for the cloned dashboard.

  8. From the Dashboard Group menu, find and choose a dashboard group to save the cloned dashboard.

You can save a cloned dashboard to an existing custom or user dashboard group, or you can create a new dashboard group. If you create a new group, the group is added as a Custom Dashboard group.

To learn more about dashboard permissions, see Read permissions for dashboard groups and dashboards.

Mirror a dashboard đź”—


Available in Enterprise Edition

Dashboard mirroring allows the same dashboard to be added to multiple dashboard groups or multiple times to one dashboard group. A dashboard can be edited from any of its mirrors and the changes made are reflected on all mirrors. However the dashboard name, filters, and dashboard variables can all be customized at the mirror level, without affecting other mirrors. These local customizations allow users to see the same metrics in the same charts, but the mirror can be filtered so that each user is presented with the metrics relevant to them.

Why mirror dashboards? đź”—

Common scenarios for dashboard mirrors:

  • You create standard dashboards for use by teams throughout your organization. You want all teams to see any changes to the charts in the dashboard, and you want members of each team to be able to set dashboard variable and filter customizations relevant to their requirements. Each team has a dashboard group linked to their team, so you add a mirror of the dashboard to each of these dashboard groups.

  • You have created a dashboard in your user dashboard group, which another user in your organization has found useful. They want to follow any changes you make to the dashboard so they add a mirror of your dashboard to their user dashboard group.

Dashboard mirror example đź”—

The following example provides a common scenario of dashboard mirroring:

In this example, there is a non-mirrored dashboard named CPU Utilization in dashboard group Project‑1. The dashboard is filtered on AWS availability zone us‑east‑1a. The Project-2 dashboard group needs the same dashboard but filtered on AWS availability zone us‑east‑1b.

Since filters are customizable within each mirrored dashboard this can be accomplished by adding a mirror of this dashboard in the Project‑2 dashboard group, and filtering on AWS availability zone us‑east‑1b.

Now there are two mirrors of the same dashboard, seen in two different places with different filters. If dashboard group Project-1 edited the mirror in group Project‑1, by adding a chart “Mean CPU Utilization”, the filter in this dashboard is still AWS availability zone us‑east‑1a. When they open the mirror in group Project‑2, they will see the added chart, but with the groups AWS availability zone us‑east‑1b filter applied.

Create a mirror đź”—

Any Splunk Observability Cloud user can create a mirror of any custom or user dashboard. Users simply need write permission for the dashboard group where they want to place the mirror.

Note

If you are working with a dashboard you control, make sure to set appropriate write permissions on the dashboard, to prevent inadvertent edits by other users who might be viewing a mirror of the dashboard.

To create a mirror, select Add a mirror from the dashboard actions menu (â‹Ż).

When you create a mirror, you have a number of ways to customize how the mirror will be displayed in the target dashboard group. You can also add dashboard mirrors to the same group as the current dashboard. This is useful if you want to have quick access to the same set of charts but with different filters or dashboard variable settings.

Select a dashboard group đź”—

Select or search for a group where you want the mirror to be placed. Dashboard groups for which you don’t have write permissions will not be available as targets for the mirror.

Change the dashboard name and description đź”—

Specify a name for the mirror in the target group. The default name suggested when creating a new dashboard mirror is the name of the original dashboard, which might be different from the displayed name of the dashboard you are currently mirroring if that dashboard itself is a mirror.

Specify a new description for the mirror in the target group. As with the name, the default will come from the dashboard. A dashboard or mirror’s description is visible when you select Dashboard Info from the Actions menu (⋯).

Customize dashboard filters and variables đź”—

Mirrored dashboard filters and variables are covered in the following sections of Create and customize dashboards:

Dashboard mirrors and permissions đź”—

Dashboard mirrors can only inherit permissions from the dashboard group where they are saved to. Therefore, when you create a new dashboard mirror, teams and users with read or write permissions on the dashboard group will have the same permissions on all mirrors.

The following table shows the prerequisites you need to do dashboard mirror actions.

Action

Dashboard Permissions

Group Permissions

Add a dashboard mirror to a dashboard group

- For an original dashboard configured with Inherit from Dashboard Group, you only need read permissions to create a mirror
- For an original dashboard with customized permissions, you must have write permissions to convert the original dashboard permission to Inherit from Dashboard Group before you can create a mirror

Read permissions for the target group

View a dashboard mirror *

No permissions needed for the original dashboard

Read permissions for the dashboard group where the mirror is saved to

Make changes to charts within a dashboard mirror

Write permissions for the original dashboard

No group permission needed

Add a new chart to a dashboard mirror

Write permissions for the original dashboard

No group permission needed

Edit settings on a dashboard mirror Overrides bar

No permissions needed for the original dashboard

Write permissions for the target dashboard group, as the mirror inherits permissions from the dashboard group it is saved to

Edit the Dashboard Info and Dashboard Variables pages of a dashboard mirror

Write permissions for the original dashboard

Write permissions for the target dashboard group, as the mirror inherits permissions from the dashboard group it is saved to

Delete a dashboard mirror from a group **, ***

No permissions needed for the original dashboard

Write permissions for the target dashboard group, as the mirror inherits permissions from the dashboard group it is saved to

* When you view the Mirrors of this dashboard list on the Dashboard Info page of a dashboard, not all mirrors might appear. The list only shows mirrors for which you have read permissions.

** When a dashboard has one or more mirrors, the Delete dashboard option is not available; it is replaced with the Remove mirror option. If all mirrors are removed from the groups in which they were placed, the Delete dashboard option will be available on the last mirror.

*** If you want to delete the last dashboard mirror in the same group as the original dashboard, and the original dashboard inherits permissions from this group, you have to change the permission settings of the original dashboard so that it inherits permissions from another group.