Top-N Widget

The Top-N widget displays the top n results from analysis of an object or objects that you select.

How the Top-N Widget and Configuration Options Work

You can select an object when you configure the Top-N widget or you can select an object on another widget. The widget shows an analysis of the applications, alerts, and metrics of an object and its child objects depending on how you configure the widget. The widget can show an analysis of the current values or values over a period of time. You can receive detailed information about each object on the widget. When you double-click an object, the Object Detail page appears.

You can configure a widget to receive data from another widget by selecting Off for Self Provider. You can configure a widget to display results from analysis of an object that you select on the source widget.

For example, you can select a host on a Topology widget and observe the metric analysis of the virtual machines on the host. To set a receiver widget that is on the same dashboard, use the Widget Interactions menu when you edit a dashboard. To set a receiver widget that is on another dashboard, use the Dashboard Navigation menu when you edit a source dashboard.

Where You Find the Top-N Widget

The widget might be included on any of your custom dashboards. From the left menu, click Visualize > Dashboards to see your configured dashboards.

To customize the data that appears in the dashboard widget, from the left menu, click Visualize > Dashboards. To create your dashboard, from the left menu, click Visualize > Dashboards. From the Dashboards panel, click Create. To edit your dashboard, from the left menu, click Visualize > Dashboards. From the Dashboards panel, select the dashboard you want to edit and select Actions > Edit. Toggle between the Views and Widgets option to view and add a widget or view to the dashboard. The widgets list panel displays a list of all the predefined widgets. Drag a widget to the dashboard workspace in the upper panel.

Top-N Widget Toolbar Options

On the title bar of the widget, click the Show Toolbar icon to access the toolbar options.

The toolbar contains icons that you can use to change the view of the graphs.

Icon	Description
Dashboard Navigation	Takes you to a predefined object. For example, when you select a datastore from the data grid and click Dashboard Navigation, you can open the datastore in the vSphere Web Client.
Select Date Range	Limits the alerts that appear in the list to the selected date range. Select Dashboard Time to enable the dashboard time panel. The option chosen in the dashboard time panel is effective. The default time is 6 hours.
Object details	Select an object and click this icon to show the Object Detail page for the object.
Display Filtering Criteria	Shows the filtering settings for the widget in a pop-up window.

Top-N Widget Configuration Options

On the title bar of the widget, click the Edit Widget icon to configure the widget.

The configuration options are grouped into one or more sections. You can select the objects on which you want to base the widget data and refine the objects in the following sections. Each section filters the objects further and pushes the filtered objects to the next section. The widget data is based on the objects that are the output of the last section.

The Configuration section provides general configuration options for the widget.

The Input Data section provides options to specify input for the widget. This section appears when the widget is in self provider mode.

The Input Transformation section provides options to transform the input for the widget.

The Output Data section provides options to select object types on which you are basing the widget data.

The Output Filter section provides options to restrict the widget data based on the selected filter criteria.

The Additional Columns section provides options to select metrics that are displayed as additional columns in the widget.

Option	Description
Title	Enter a custom title that identifies this widget from other instances that are based on the same widget template.
Configuration
Refresh Content	Enable or disable the automatic refreshing of the data in this widget. If not enabled, the widget is updated only when the dashboard is opened or when you click the Refresh button on the widget in the dashboard.
Refresh Interval	If you enable the Refresh Content option, specify how often to refresh the data in this widget.
Self Provider	Indicates whether the objects for which data appears in the widget are defined in the widget or provided by another widget. On. You define the objects for which data appears in the widget. Off. You configure other widgets to provide the objects to the widget using the dashboard widget interactions options.
Redraw Rate	Set the redraw rate.
Bars Count	Select the number of top results.
Round Decimals	Select the number of decimals to round the scores displayed in the widget.
Filter old metrics	Select or deselect whether the analysis includes old metric values.
Application Health and Performance	Top Least Healthy. The top n results from an analysis of the object or objects that are the least healthy. Top Most Healthy. The top n results from an analysis of the object or objects that are the most healthy. Top Most Volatile. The sorted list of values based on the standard deviation of values for several alerts over time. Select the criteria for analysis of the objects.
Alert Analysis	Select the criteria for analysis of the alerts.
Metric Analysis	If you select this option, you must select a metric in the Output Data section. Top Highest Utilization. A list of objects with similar object types that have the highest utilization on configuring usage metrics like CPU usage and memory usage. Top Lowest Utilization. A list of objects with similar object types that have the lowest utilization on configuring usage metrics like CPU usage and memory usage. Top Abnormal States. The objects are ordered by the duration of all alarms that are triggered on the selected metric for a selected interval. Top Highest Volatility. The sorted list of values based on the standard deviation of values for several alerts over time. Select the criteria for analysis of the metric that you select from the metric tree.
Input Data
Objects	Select objects on which you want to base the widget data. Click the Add New Objects icon and select objects in the pop-up window. The selected objects appear in a list in this section. While selecting objects, you can use the Filter text box to search for objects. You can also expand the Tag Filter pane on the left hand side to select one or more object tag values. A list of objects with the selected tag values appears. If you select more than one value for the same tag, you can choose objects that have any of the tags applied. If you select more than one value for different tags, you can choose only the objects that have all the tags applied. Optionally, select objects from the list and click the Remove Selected Objects icon to remove the selected objects. Click the Select All icon to select all the objects in the list. Click the Clear Selection icon to clear your selection of objects in the list.
All	If you select this option, the widget data is based on all the objects in your environment. The following sections provide options to refine the objects for the widget data.
Input Transformation
Relationship	Transform the input for the widget based on the relationship of the objects. For example, if you select the Children check box and a Depth of 1, the child objects are the transformed inputs for the widget.
Output Data
	Select an object type in your environment on which you want to base the widget data. Click the Add Object Type icon to search for and add an object type. When you search for object types, you can filter the types in the list by selecting a type from the Adapter Type drop-down menu or by using the Filter text box. Optionally, select the object type from the list and click the Delete Object Type icon to remove the selected object type. If the objects have an input transformation applied, the transformed objects are the basis for the widget data.
Metric	Select a common metric or a metric for the selected object type in the list. The metric is the basis for the widget data.
Label	Type in a name that displays as a label for the metric. You can add a label if you have selected Metric Analysis > Top Highest Utilization or Metric Analysis > Top Lowest Utilization as Top-N options in the Configuration section.
Unit	You can define measurement units for the metrics. Select a measurement unit in the Unit drop-down menu. You can add a unit if you have selected Metric Analysis > Top Highest Utilization or Metric Analysis > Top Lowest Utilization as Top-N options in the Configuration section.
Maximum	Specify the maximum value based on which the bar size is calculated. You can add a maximum value if you have selected any of the options under Metric Analysis.
Color Method	You can use the Color Method option to define a coloring criteria for each metric. If this option is set to Custom, you can enter color values in the Yellow, Orange, and Red text boxes. If you do not want to use color, select None. You can add color thresholds if you have selected Metric Analysis > Top Highest Utilization, Metric Analysis > Top Lowest Utilization, or Metric Analysis > Percentile as Top-N options in the Configuration section.
Output Filter
Basic	Pick tags to refine the widget data. The widget data is based on the objects that have the picked tags applied. If you pick more than one value for the same tag, the widget includes objects that have any of the tags applied. If you pick more than one value for different tags, the widget includes only the objects that have all the tags applied. If the objects have an input transformation applied, you select tag values for the transformed objects.
Advanced	Refine the widget data further based on the filter criteria for object types. The widget data is based on the objects for the filtered object types. If the objects have a tag filter applied in the Basic subsection, you define filter criteria for the object types of the objects with tag filter applied. If the objects with tag filter applied do not belong to any of the object types in this filter criteria, the widget skips this filter and includes all the objects with tag filter applied. If the objects have an input transformation applied, you define filter criteria for the object types of the transformed objects. In the first drop-down menu, select an object type. In the second drop-down menu, select the option based on which you want to define the filter criteria. For example, if you select Metrics for the Datacenter object type, you can define a filter criteria based on the value of a specific metric for data centers. In the drop-down menus and text boxes that appear, select or enter values to filter the objects. To add more filter criteria, click Add. To add another filter criteria set, click Add another criteria set.
Additional Columns
	Add metrics based on object types. The selected metrics are displayed as additional columns in the widget. Click the Add New Metrics icon to add metrics based on object types. The metrics that you add appear in a list in this section. While selecting object types for which you want to pick metrics, you can filter the object types by adapter type to pick an object type. On the metrics pane, click the Select Object icon to select an object for the object type. Pick metrics of the selected object from the metric tree. For example, you can select the Datacenter object type, click the Select Object icon to display the list of data centers in your environment, and pick metrics of the selected data center. Optionally, you can double-click a metric box in the list to customize the label of the metric and click Update.