Dashboards present a visual overview of the performance and state of objects in your virtual infrastructure. You use dashboards to determine the nature and timeframe of existing and potential issues with your environment. You create dashboards by adding widgets to a dashboard and configuring them.

VMware Aria Operations collects performance data from monitored software and hardware resources in your enterprise and provides predictive analysis and real-time information about problems. The data and analysis are presented through alerts, in configurable dashboards, on predefined pages, and in several predefined dashboards.

  • You can start with several predefined dashboards in VMware Aria Operations .
  • You can create extra ones that meet your specific needs using widgets, views, badges, and filters to change the focus of the information.
  • You can clone and edit the predefined dashboards or start from scratch.
  • To display data that shows dependencies, you can add widget interactions in dashboards.
  • You can provide role-based access to various dashboards for better collaboration in teams.
Table 1. Features
Features Description
Manage You can also manage dashboards by clicking Operations > Dashboards. From the Dashboards panel, click Manage.
Create Use this option to create a dashboard. See Create and Configure Dashboards.
Search You can search for a dashboard across the Favorites, Recents, and All folders in the Dashboards panel.
Favorites You can mark a dashboard as a favorite using the Favorite icon at the top of each dashboard. All the dashboards that you have marked as a favorite, are listed under the Favorites folder in the Dashboards panel.
Recents The dashboards are listed in the order in which you select them, with the most recent dashboard that you selected, appearing at the top. Up to ten dashboards can be displayed as Recent dashboards.

If you do not pin the dashboard and log out of the user interface, on logging back in, the dashboard is removed from the Recents folder.

Shared If you have shared the dashboard, the shared icon is displayed against the dashboard name.
All Lists the dashboard folders and the dashboards that are activated. You can use this menu for quick navigation through your dashboards. When you navigate to a dashboard using the Operations > Dashboards option, the dashboards are listed in the Dashboards panel under All. You can also search for dashboards using keywords and letters.
Actions Available dashboard actions, such as edit, delete, Set as Dashboards Home, and Add to Product Home. These actions are applied directly to the dashboard that you are on.

Set as Dashboards Home: Adds the dashboard to the Dashboard panel > Favorites list. To remove the dashboard from the Favorites list, select Actions > Unset as Dashboards Home.

Add to Product Home: Adds the dashboard as a tab in the Home page. You can also reorder the tabs in the Home page using drag and drop. You can also set this option by clicking the Home icon at the top right side of the dashboard. To remove the dashboard from the Home page, select Actions > Remove from Product Home.
Note: You can add up to 5 dashboards to the Home page.
Dashboard Time The dashboard time panel is activated by default on all predefined and user-created dashboards. Using this option, you can select a time for the widgets in the dashboard. The default time is 6 hours. The pre-defined time/day options in the panel are 1 hour, 6 hours, 24 hours, or 7 days. You can also set a customized time option.

To activate widgets to use the dashboard time, select Date Controls/Time Range > Dashboard Time from the widget toolbar. Some widgets have Dashboard Time as the default option. For example, Metric Chart, View, Rolling View, Sparkline, Health Chart, and Mashup Chart widgets.

Dashboard time persists if:
  • You activate a widget in a dashboard to use the dashboard time and then log out and log back in, or
  • You activate a widget in a dashboard to use the dashboard time, and you export and then import the dashboard into another instance of VMware Aria Operations.