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Visualize data

Panels and visualizations

Configure panel options

Grafana Cloud Enterprise Open source

Configure panel options

There are settings common to all visualizations, which you set in the Panel options section of the panel editor pane. The following sections describe these options as well as how to set them.

Panel options

Set the following options to provide basic information about a panel and define basic display elements:

Option	Description
Title	Text entered in this field appears at the top of your panel in the panel editor and in the dashboard. You can use variables you have defined or global variables.
Description	Add a description to a panel to share with users any important information about it, such as its purpose. Text entered in this field appears in a tooltip in the upper-left corner of the panel. Conversely, toggle on the Use as subtitle switch to display the description just below the panel title instead. You can use variables you have defined or dashboard-scoped global variables (such as `$__from`, `$__to`, `$__dashboard`, `$__org`, and `$__user`). Query-scoped global variables (such as `$__interval` and `$__interval_ms`) are not available in this field.
Transparent background	Toggle this switch on and off to control whether or not the panel has the same background color as the dashboard.
Panel links	Add links to the panel to create shortcuts to other dashboards, panels, and external websites. Access panel links by clicking the icon next to the panel title.
Repeat options	Set whether to repeat the panel for each value in the selected variable. For more information, refer to Configure repeating panels.
Show/hide rules	Set whether to show or hide panels based on various rules. For more information, refer to Show/hide rules.

You can use generative AI to populate the Title and Description fields with the Grafana LLM plugin, which is currently in public preview. To enable this, refer to Set up generative AI features for dashboards.

Description field formatting

Grafana renders the Description field as GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM). You can use common Markdown and GFM features, including:

Emphasis: **bold**, _italic_, and ~~strikethrough~~
Structure: headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, horizontal rules, bulleted and numbered lists
Code: `inline code` and fenced code blocks
Links and media: [link text](https://example.com) and images ![alt](https://example.com/image.png)
Tables: GFM-style pipe tables

The description appears in a tooltip, so short copy and basic formatting work best. To break text into separate paragraphs, use an empty line between them, or use a list.

Grafana sanitizes the rendered HTML to reduce security risk and strips out or restricts arbitrary HTML, scripts, and many embedded elements, similar to Markdown in the Text visualization.

Configure repeating panels

You can configure Grafana to dynamically add panels to a dashboard. A dynamic panel is a panel that the system creates based on the value of a multi-value variable. Variables dynamically change your queries across all panels in a dashboard.

To see an example of repeating panels, refer to this dashboard with repeating panels.

For information about repeating rows and tabs, refer to Configure repeat options.

Before you begin:

Ensure that the query includes a multi-value variable.

To configure repeating panels, follow these steps:

Go to the dashboard you want to update and navigate to the panel you want to repeat.
If the dashboard is large, open the Content outline and use it to navigate to the part of the dashboard you want to update.
Click Edit.
Click the panel to open the sidebar.
Expand the Repeat options section.
Select the Repeat by variable.
For panels in a custom layout, set the following options:
Under Repeat direction, choose one of the following:
- Horizontal - Arrange panels side-by-side. Grafana adjusts the width of a repeated panel. You can’t mix other panels on a row with a repeated panel.
- Vertical - Arrange panels in a column. The width of repeated panels is the same as the original, repeated panel.
If you selected Horizontal, select a value in the Max per row drop-down list to control the maximum number of panels that can be in a row.
(Optional) To provide context to dashboard users, add the variable name to the panel, row, or tab title.
When you’ve finished setting the repeat option, click Save.
(Optional) Enter a description of the changes you’ve made.
Click Save.
Click Exit edit.
To propagate changes to all panels, reload the dashboard.

You can stop a panel from repeating by selecting Disable repeating in the Repeat by variable drop-down list.

Limitations of repeating panels

Panels generated by the repeat feature have the following limitations:

Generated panels can’t be edited: Only the source panel is editable and changes you make in the source panel editor apply to all generated copies.
Layout changes don’t persist: Each time the dashboard loads or refreshes, Grafana regenerates repeated panels from the source panel. Any layout changes you make to the generated copies are overwritten on reload.
You can’t mix repeated panels: You can’t mix repeated panels with other panels on the same row when using the horizontal repeat direction.

If you need each panel to have a unique, stable layout position or individual settings, disable the repeat option and create separate panels manually instead.

Show/hide rules

You can configure panels to be shown or hidden based on rules. For example, you can set a panel to be hidden if there’s no data returned by a query or to only be shown if a specific variable value is present.

There are three types of show/hide rules to choose from:

Query result
Template variable
Time range less than

For steps to create show/hide rules, refer to Configure show/hide rules.

Note
You can only configure show/hide rules for panels in the Auto grid layout. Set the panel layout at the dashboard, row, or tab-level.

Query result rule

Show or hide a panel based on whether or not the query returns any results. The rule provides Has data and No data options, so you can choose to show or hide the panel based on the presence or absence of data.

For example, if you have a dashboard with several panels and only want panels that return data to appear, set the rule as follows:

Panel visibility > Show
Query result > Has data

Alternatively, you might also want to troubleshoot a dashboard with several panels to see which ones contain broken queries that aren’t returning any results. In this case, you’d set the rule as follows:

Panel visibility > Show
Query result > No data

Template variable rule

Show or hide a panel dynamically based on a variable value. You can select any variable that’s configured for the dashboard and choose from the following operators for maximum flexibility:

Equals
Not equals
Matches (regular expression values)
Not matches (regular expression values)

You can add more variables if you need to without leaving the dashboard.

Time range less than rule

Show or hide a panel if the dashboard time range is shorter than the selected time range. This ensures that as you change the time range of the dashboard, you only see data relevant to that time period.

For example, a dashboard that’s tracking adoption of a feature over time has the following setup:

Dashboard time range is Last 7 days
One panel tracks weekly stats
One panel tracks daily stats

For the panel tracking weekly stats, a rule is set up to hide it if the dashboard time range is less than 7 days. For the panel tracking daily stats, a rule is set up to hide it if the dashboard time range is less 24 hours. This configuration ensures that these time-based panels are only displayed when enough time has passed to make them relevant.

For this rule type, you can select time ranges from 5 minutes to 5 years.

Configure show/hide rules

To configure a show/hide rule, follow these steps:

Navigate to the dashboard you want to update.
Click Edit.
Click the panel you want to update to open the sidebar, or click the Dashboard options icon to open it.
If the dashboard is large, open the Content outline and use it to navigate to the part of the dashboard you want to update.
Expand the Show / hide rules section.
Select Show or Hide to set whether the panel is shown or hidden based on the rules outcome.
Click + Add rule.
Select a rule type:
- Query result: Show or hide a panel based on query results. Choose from Has data and No data.
- Template variable: Show or hide the panel dynamically based on the variable value. Select a variable and operator, and enter a value.
- Time range less than: Show or hide the panel if the dashboard time range is shorter than the selected time range. Select a time range from 5 minutes to 5 years.
If you’ve configured multiple rules, the Match rules option displays. Select one of the following:
- Match all: The panel is shown or hidden only if all the rules are matched.
- Match any: The panel is shown or hidden if any of the rules are matched.
When you’ve finished setting rules, save the dashboard.
(Optional) Enter a description of the changes you’ve made.
Click Save again.
Click Exit edit

Hidden panels aren’t visible when the dashboard is in view mode. In edit mode, hidden dashboard panels are displayed with an icon or overlay indicating this.