11 Using Dashboards
Enterprise Manager dashboards are data visualization tools that gather real-time data from the enterprise and display them in easy-to-interpret widgets. Dashboards enable you to monitor your IT infrastructure or specific areas or targets at a glance, and quickly identify outliers and take corrective action.
To access Dashboards in Enterprise Manager, from the Enterprise menu, select Dashboards. On the Dashboards page, the list of out-of-the-box dashboards and custom dashboards, if any, is displayed. On this page, you can:
- Click Create dashboard to create a custom dashboard. For information, see Creating a Custom Dashboard.
- Click Import dashboards to import a dashboard. For information, see Export and Import Dashboards.
- Click Show widgets to view the list of available
out-of-the-box and custom widgets. On the Widgets page, you
can:
- Select an option in the Created by drop-down list to filter the list of widgets. For example, select Oracle in the Created by drop-down list to only view out-of-the-box widgets.
- Click the
icon for a custom widget and click the available options to perform tasks such as duplicating or deleting the widget. Note that these options are currently disabled for out-of-the-box widgets.
- Click Show filters to view the list of available filters.
- Sort the list of dashboards by clicking the Sort
ascending or Sort descending icon (
or
) in the column headings.
- Enter text in the Search... field to view the dashboards that have the text in the name or description.
- Click the name of a dashboard to open it.
- Click the
icon for a dashboard and click the available options to perform tasks such as opening the dashboard in the view or edit mode, duplicating the dashboard, or deleting the dashboard. For out-of-the-box dashboards, only the Open and Duplicate options are enabled in this menu.
Note:
In addition to Enterprise Manager dashboards, you can create dashboards using Grafana, which is an open-source technology used for metric analytics and visualization. In the Oracle Enterprise Manager App for Grafana, you can extract OMS repository metric data and display it graphically for fast, intuitive access to performance and metric information. For information on enabling the Oracle Enterprise Manager App for Grafana, see Enable the Oracle Enterprise Manager App for Grafana.Out-of-the-Box Enterprise Manager Dashboards
The out-of-the-box Enterprise Manager dashboards provide a summary of the health, compliance, and other details of the assets in your enterprise or the targets that are a part of a group. The data in these dashboards is organized in widgets and presented using visualization options such as graphs, thereby facilitating quick and easy interpretation.
The following out-of-the-box dashboards are listed on the Dashboards page and you can click the name of the dashboard to access it and monitor the data available in the widgets:
- Target Summary: Provides an overview of the health and performance of a target. In this dashboard, you can select a single target and monitor its availability, a summary of open incidents, and key metrics over the last 24 hours. In addition, the tabs below the widgets display historical metric data, the list of incidents, compliance standards, and jobs for the target. In this dashboard, you can click the titles and contents of the widgets to go to the corresponding Enterprise Manager page to obtain additional inputs. For example, if monitoring a database instance in the Target Summary dashboard, click the title of the Availability widget to go to the Availability (Status History) page and obtain detailed availability information for the database.
- Enterprise Summary: Provides an overview of the assets in the enterprise, their health, and compliance. The widgets in this dashboard are organized within three major categories, Overview, Infrastructure, and Compliance. The widgets display information such as the status of the targets, inventory data such as the number of hosts and databases, compliance information, number of incidents and jobs, patch recommendations, and version details.
- Group Summary: Provides an overview of the
health, top metrics, and compliance information of the targets in a particular
group. As a prerequisite task to using this dashboard, an administrator user must
create a group. For information on creating a group, see Creating and Editing Groups.
On accessing this dashboard and selecting a group in the Group drop-down list, you can monitor target status, target types, incident trend, compliance information, and inventory data. In addition, you can also monitor the top metrics for hosts, databases, and WebLogic server.
- Federation Summary – By Sites: Provides a consolidated view of targets, incidents, jobs, and compliance data across a list of federated Enterprise Manager sites. It can be further filtered by a group that exists on multiple sites.
- Federation Summary – By Groups: Provides a consolidated view of targets, incidents, jobs, and compliance data for selected groups across a list of federated Enterprise Manager sites.
In the out-of-the-box dashboards, click Actions and click one of the following options:
- Duplicate: Create a duplicate of the out-of-the-box dashboard and customize it to meet your requirements.
- Print: Print the dashboard.
- Auto-refresh: Specify the frequency at which the data in the dashboard must be refreshed automatically.
- Refresh: Refresh the data in the dashboard.
In the out-of-the-box widgets, click the data or value in a widget to navigate to the corresponding Enterprise Manager page. For example, if you click the number in the Databases widget, the All Targets page, which is refined to only list database targets, is displayed.
Customizing an Out-of-the-Box Dashboard
You can customize out-of-the-box dashboards in Enterprise Manager to meet your specific requirements.

If you want to make changes to the contents of the dashboard, click Actions in the upper-right corner of the dashboard and then click Edit to go to the edit mode.
Creating a Custom Dashboard
You can create a custom dashboard by adding the out-of-the-box widgets in the widget library and creating and adding custom query-based widgets.
CREATE_ANY_DASHBOARD
privilege. An Enterprise Manager Super
Administrator can grant the CREATE_ANY_DASHBOARD
privilege to a user or
role using the emcli grant_privs
command. Alternatively, a Super
Administrator can grant the Create Dashboards privilege using the Dashboards
resource type in the Security user interface.
After you click Save changes, the dashboard is in
view mode. In the view mode, click the icon on a widget and then click Export to CSV to export widget data
to a CSV file. Note that the Export to CSV option is disabled if the widget
does not support this feature.
If you want to make changes to the contents of your dashboard, click Actions in the upper-right corner of the dashboard and then click Edit to go to the edit mode.
emcli
grant_privs
command and the DashboardID
, which is a part
of the dashboard metadata identified by the "id"
attribute. The
privilege levels include:
VIEW_DASHBOARD
: Allows a user to view the dashboard.EDIT_DASHBOARD
: Allows a user to view and edit the dashboard.FULL_DASHBOARD
: Allows a user to view, edit, and delete the dashboard.
Here is an example of the EMCLI command:
$ emcli grant_privs -name="<USER>" -privilege="EDIT_DASHBOARD;DASHBOARD_ID=<DashboardID>"
Using Out-of-the-Box Metric Widgets
You can add out-of-the-box metric widgets to a dashboard and visualize and display the metrics stored in Enterprise Manager.
The out-of-the-box metric widgets access and obtain the metric data uploaded to the Enterprise Manager Management Repository and display it in a visual format. The visualization of metric data in a widget makes it easy to monitor and interpret. Depending on the duration for which you want to display metric data in the widgets, it is fetched from the following sources:
- Metric data for a duration of less than 2 days is fetched from RAW data.
- Metric data for a duration of 2 to 14 days is fetched from the hourly roll-up table.
- Metric data for a duration of more than 14 days is fetched from the daily roll-up table.
Here is a scenario that illustrates how to create a new dashboard and use the Target Metric - Line metric widget to display the Active Sessions: CPU metric for a specific Pluggable Database (PDB):
- Navigate to the Dashboards page.
- Click Create Dashboard to create a new
dashboard.
A blank untitled dashboard is displayed.
- In the About tab, specify a name for the dashboard, and optionally add a description for the dashboard.
- In the Widgets tab, type Target Metric - Line in the search field to view the widget in the list of out-of-the-box widgets.
- Click or drag and drop the Target Metric - Line widget to add it
to the new dashboard.
As you add the widget to the dashboard, you must configure the inputs to display the Active Sessions : CPU metric for a specific PDB. Here is more information on the options you can select:
- In the Configure Target Type input for Target Metric - Line (Required) dialog, select the Specify the Target Type input option and select the Pluggable Database option in the drop-down list.
- In the Configure Target Name input for Target Metric - Line (Required) dialog, select the Specify the Target Name input option and select the specific PDB in the drop-down list.
- In the Configure Metric Name input for Target Metric - Line (Required) dialog, select the Specify the Metric Name input option and select Wait Count in the drop-down list.
- In the Configure Metric Column input for Target Metric - Line (Required) dialog, select the Specify the Metric Column input option and select Active Sessions : CPU in the drop-down list.
On configuring these inputs, the Target Metric - Line widget is added to the dashboard and displays the number of active sessions using CPU for the specified PDB in a line chart. The Edit Widgets tab on the right displays the details of the widget, and this includes the list of inputs configured for the widget. To make changes to the input configuration, click the Edit icon (
) adjacent to the input. For example, in the Target Metric - Line widget, the time input is linked to the dashboard time by default, however, you can edit this input and specify a different duration of time.
- Click Save changes to save the dashboard.
- Aggregate Target Type: The Group option is selected by default, however, you can change the aggregate target type. Any target type that has been defined to have members, is listed as an aggregate target type.
- Number of Targets: The default number of top targets for which data is displayed is 5, however, you can change this to display data for more or fewer targets. The top <n> targets are determined based on the highest average metric value queried from the hourly roll-up table.
- Rollup Column: The pre-aggregated column that must be selected from the historical metric table. Historical metric data is pre-aggregated using standard functions such as average, min, and max. Average is the default function, however, you can edit the Rollup Column input and select the Min or Max functions.
- Key Aggregate Function: The function used to
aggregate multiple key metric values for a target for a given time stamp.
Average is the default function, however, you can
edit the Key Aggregate Function input and select the
Min, Max, or
Sum functions.
Here is a scenario that illustrates how Key Aggregate Function can be used. A Windows host target has multiple drives (keys), such as
C:
andD:
, and the file system in theC:
drive uses 1.5 GB and the file system in theD:
drive uses 2 GB. You can select the FileSystem Used metric, which is a key metric for host targets and select Sum as the Key Aggregate Function to view the total file system usage in the Windows host at a given time:1.5 + 2 = 3.5 GB
. - Time: The time input is set to the last 7 days by default, however, you can specify a different duration of time for which metric data will be displayed.
Export and Import Dashboards
You can export a custom dashboard along with its widgets and filters, and import it to a different environment.
Note:
You cannot export and import out-of-the-box dashboards.Export a Dashboard
You can export a custom dashboard in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format.
The JSON file with the configuration information of the dashboard is downloaded.
Import a Dashboard
You can import a dashboard using the configuration information JSON file that was downloaded when exporting the dashboard.
When importing a dashboard, its widgets and filters are imported too.
To import a dashboard:
Creating a Custom Query-based Widget
You can create a custom query-based widget and add it to a new or existing dashboard.
Before you create a widget, you must ensure that you have the
CREATE_SAVED_SEARCHES
privilege. An Enterprise Manager Super
Administrator can grant the CREATE_SAVED_SEARCHES
privilege to a user
or role using the emcli grant_privs
command. Alternatively, a Super
Administrator can grant the Create Saved Searches privilege using the Saved
Searches resource type in the Security user interface.
Other prerequisites for creating query-based widgets include a working knowledge of:
- SQL queries and how to create and edit them
- Oracle Enterprise Manager Management Repository views
The SQL query retrieves the data you want to view in the widget from an Enterprise Manager Management Repository view. These views provide access to target, metric, and monitoring information stored in the Management Repository. For information on Management Repository views, see About Management Repository Views in Oracle Enterprise Manager Management Repository Views Reference.
To access the widget builder to create a custom query-based widget:
- Navigate to the Dashboards page.
- Click Create Dashboard or open an existing dashboard in edit mode.
- In the Widgets tab, under Add
widgets, click the Add widget group and
widgets icon (
), and then click Create query-based widget.
A blank untitled widget is displayed in the widget builder.
You can use the following types of data sources as input to create a query-based widget:
- Custom SQL: Enter a custom SQL query to create a widget that meets your specific requirements. For more information, see Creating a Widget Using Custom SQL.
- Predefined SQL: Select from the out-of-the-box named SQL queries, which display the requested data in the widget. For more information, see Creating a Widget Using Predefined SQL.
On specifying the input to the widget in the widget builder, use the available visualization options to display data to support various scenarios.
Note:
- Only custom query-based widgets can be edited in the widget builder.
- Any changes made to a custom query-based widget will impact its use in all the dashboards of which it is a part. For example, if a custom query-based widget is used in two dashboards and the widget is edited in one of the dashboards and changes are made to the parameter configuration, then this may result in the widget not displaying any data in the other dashboard.
You can allow other Enterprise Manager users to view or edit the widget you have created.
To provide the permissions, use the emcli grant_privs
command and the
SavedSearchID
, which is a part of the saved search metadata
identified by the "id"
attribute. The privilege levels include:
VIEW_SAVED_SEARCH
: Allows a user to view the saved search.EDIT_SAVED_SEARCH
: Allows a user to view and edit the saved search.FULL_SAVED_SEARCH
: Allows a user to view, edit, and delete the saved search.
Here is an example of the EMCLI command:
$ emcli grant_privs -name="<USER>" -privilege="EDIT_SAVED_SEARCH;SAVED_SEARCH_ID=<SavedSearchID>"
Creating a Widget Using Custom SQL
After you save the widget, it is added to the dashboard and is also
listed in the Widgets tab. Click the icon in the upper-right corner of the widget and click
Edit to view the widget in the Edit
widgets tab and click Edit Widget to go to
the widget builder and edit the input parameters or visualization options.
Creating a Widget Using Predefined SQL
After you save the widget, it is added to the dashboard and is also
listed in the Widgets tab. Click the icon in the upper-right corner of the widget and click
Edit to view the widget in the Edit
widgets tab and click Edit Widget to go to
the widget builder and edit the input parameters or visualization options.
Adding a Widget Group
You can add a widget group container to group widgets in a dashboard.
The widget group can be used to group related widgets in a new or existing dashboard. For example, you can add a widget group that contains all the compliance-related widgets in the dashboard.
To add a widget group to a dashboard:
- Navigate to the Dashboards page.
- Click Create Dashboard or open an existing dashboard in edit mode.
- In the Widgets tab, under Add
widgets, click the Add widget group and
widgets icon (
), and then click Add widget group.
A blank widget group container is added to the dashboard.
- Drag and drop the widgets you want to group together into the widget group container.
- Click Edit widgets on the
Widgets tab to view and specify a name for the widget
group, and review and configure inputs for the widgets in the group, if required.
Optionally, click the
icon on the widget group to perform tasks such as altering its size or placement, deleting or duplicating it, and ungrouping all the widgets in the group. Click the
icon on a single widget in the widget group and click Ungroup to remove that widget from the group.
- Click Save changes to save the dashboard.