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Navigate the User Interface

The layout of the application is comprised of sections, panes, dashboards, graphs, entities, and navigation elements. The following sections describe each of these elements.

Sections​

A section provides access to all the functionalities you need to perform a specific activity. For example, the Metrics section provides an overview of all your applications. The following example screenshot shows the four applications that come with the Hot R.O.D. demo application:

Metrics section

Panes​

A pane is a subdivision of a section dedicated to a set of functionalities. For example, the Application Details section contains three separate panes:

  • Application Metrics
  • External Calls
  • Database Calls

Screenshot showing three panes

Dashboards​

A dashboard is a set of one or more graphs. In the Dashboard section, you can create, update, and delete dashboards:

Dashboard section

The following example screenshot shows a dashboard named CPU Load containing two graphs - Load Average and Total CPU Time:

CPU Load Dashboard

Predefined and Custom Graphs​

In SigNoz, a graph can either display a metric over a time interval or only the most recent value.

SigNoz supports two types of graphs:

  • Predefined graphs that you can find in the Metrics section. You can't modify any of these graphs.
  • Custom graphs are graphs you create, update, and remove in the Dashboard section.

Common Operations

This section describes the common operations that you can perform on a graph.

  • You can hover over a graph to see the actual values at a specific point in time:

    Hover over a graph

  • If your graph shows multiple data series, depending on what you want to highlight, you can enable or disable a specific data series by clicking it at the bottom of the chart. The following example disables the p95 latency:

    Disable p95

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    When you enable or disable a specific data series, the system could automatically change the scale of the vertical (value) axis.

  • If your graph shows application-related metrics, you can click a point on the graph and then select View Traces to open the Traces page for that specific point in time:

    View traces

Entities​

An entity represents a specific type of data, such as an alert. Each entity consists of a series of properties. For example, an alert is defined by a name, expression, period, and labels.

The following illustration shows the Metrics section and the primary navigation elements:

Primary navigation elements

Legend:

  1. Sidebar: Lists all the sections. Select a section to open it. The current section is highlighted in blue.
  2. Expand/Collapse button: Select this button to collapse the sidebar, allowing more room for the main part of the page. If the sidebar is already collapsed, select this button to expand it again.
  3. Main body: This example shows the Metrics section.
  4. Global Time Period: With SigNoz, you can specify the time range for which you want to view data by setting the global time period. SigNoz allows you to either indicate a specific time range such as the last five minutes or specify a start and end date by selecting Custom from the drop-down menu: Specify global time period
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    On some pages, you can override the global time period. For example, when creating a custom graph, you can use the drop-down list under Panel Time Preferences to override the global time period: Override the Global Time Period