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Widgets & Layout

Widgets are the building blocks of dashboards.

Use this guide to review the common widget types used in monitoring dashboards and the basic layout practices that make them effective.

Widget Types​

Typical widget types include:

  • Time‑series charts – show trends over time; ideal for latency, traffic, and utilization.
  • Single‑value tiles – display current KPI values such as availability, error rate, or SLO burn.
  • Tables – list top N offenders (for example, hosts by CPU, services by error rate).
  • Status grids – show health of many components (for example, multiple accounts, regions, or services).

Layout Guidelines​

  • Put overall health at the top—high‑level KPIs and status summaries.
  • Group related widgets (for example, golden signals together, dependency health together).
  • Keep dashboards readable on common screen sizes; avoid excessive horizontal scrolling.
  • Use consistent colors and legends to reduce cognitive load.

Using CMDB Context​

Use filters and labels derived from CMDB so viewers can:

  • Filter by application, environment, region, or owner.
  • Drill down from an overview dashboard into more detailed service or component views.