Panels on Grafana Labs

Dashboard List

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 16:15:04 -0700

Dashboard List Panel

The dashboard list panel allows you to display dynamic links to other dashboards. The list can be configured to use starred dashboards, a search query and/or dashboard tags.

On each dashboard load, the dashlist panel will re-query the dashboard list, always providing the most up to date results.

Mode: Starred Dashboards

The starred dashboard selection displays starred dashboards, up to the number specified in the Limit Number to field, in alphabetical order. On dashboard load, the dashlist panel will re-query the favorites to appear in dashboard list panel, always providing the most up to date results.

Mode: Search Dashboards

The panel may be configured to search by either string query or tag(s). On dashboard load, the dashlist panel will re-query the dashboard list, always providing the most up to date results.

To configure dashboard list in this manner, select search from the Mode select box. When selected, the Search Options section will appear.

Name	Description
Mode	Set search or starred mode
Query	If in search mode specify the search query
Tags	if in search mode specify dashboard tags to search for
Limit number to	Specify the maximum number of dashboards

Search by string

To search by a string, enter a search query in the Search Options: Query field. Queries are case-insensitive, and partial values are accepted.

Search by tag

To search by one or more tags, enter your selection in the Search Options: Tags: field. Note that existing tags will not appear as you type, and are case sensitive. To see a list of existing tags, you can always return to the dashboard, open the Dashboard Picker at the top and click tags link in the search bar.

When multiple tags and strings appear, the dashboard list will display those matching ALL conditions.

Graph Panel

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 16:15:04 -0700

Graph Panel

The main panel in Grafana is simply named Graph. It provides a very rich set of graphing options.

Clicking the title for a panel exposes a menu. The edit option opens additional configuration options for the panel.

General

The general tab allows customization of a panel’s appearance and menu options.

General Options

Title - The panel title on the dashboard
Span - The panel width in columns
Height - The panel contents height in pixels

Drilldown / detail link

The drilldown section allows adding dynamic links to the panel that can link to other dashboards or URLs.

Each link has a title, a type and params. A link can be either a dashboard or absolute links. If it is a dashboard link, the dashboard value must be the name of a dashboard. If it is an absolute link, the URL is the URL to the link.

params allows adding additional URL params to the links. The format is the name=value with multiple params separated by &. Template variables can be added as values using $myvar.

When linking to another dashboard that uses template variables, you can use var-myvar=value to populate the template variable to a desired value from the link.

Metrics

The metrics tab defines what series data and sources to render. Each datasource provides different options.

Axes & Grid

The Axes & Grid tab controls the display of axes, grids and legend.

Axes

The Left Y and Right Y can be customized using:

Unit - The display unit for the Y value
Grid Max - The maximum Y value. (default auto)
Grid Min - The minimum Y value. (default auto)
Label - The Y axis label (default “”)

Axes can also be hidden by unchecking the appropriate box from Show Axis.

Legend

The legend hand be hidden by checking the Show checkbox. If it’s shown, it can be displayed as a table of values by checking the Table checkbox. Series with no values can be hidden from the legend using the Hide empty checkbox.

Legend Values

Additional values can be shown along-side the legend names:

Total - Sum of all values returned from metric query
Current - Last value returned from the metric query
Min - Minimum of all values returned from metric query
Max - Maximum of all values returned from the metric query
Avg - Average of all values returned from metric query
Decimals - Controls how many decimals are displayed for legend values (and graph hover tooltips)

The legend values are calculated client side by Grafana and depend on what type of aggregation or point consolidation your metric query is using. All the above legend values cannot be correct at the same time. For example if you plot a rate like requests/second, this is probably using average as aggregator, then the Total in the legend will not represent the total number of requests. It is just the sum of all data points received by Grafana.

Display styles

Display styles control visual properties of the graph.

Thresholds

Thresholds allow you to add arbitrary lines or sections to the graph to make it easier to see when the graph crosses a particular threshold.

Chart Options

Bar - Display values as a bar chart
Lines - Display values as a line graph
Points - Display points for values

Line Options

Line Fill - Amount of color fill for a series. 0 is none.
Line Width - The width of the line for a series.
Null point mode - How null values are displayed
Staircase line - Draws adjacent points as staircase

Multiple Series

If there are multiple series, they can be displayed as a group.

Stack - Each series is stacked on top of another
Percent - Each series is drawn as a percentage of the total of all series

If you have stack enabled, you can select what the mouse hover feature should show.

Cumulative - Sum of series below plus the series you hover over
Individual - Just the value for the series you hover over

Rendering

Flot - Render the graphs in the browser using Flot (default)
Graphite PNG - Render the graph on the server using graphite’s render API.

Tooltip

All series - Show all series on the same tooltip and a x crosshairs to help follow all series

Series Specific Overrides

The section allows a series to be rendered differently from the others. For example, one series can be given a thicker line width to make it stand out.

Dashes Drawing Style

There is an option under Series overrides to draw lines as dashes. Set Dashes to the value True to override the line draw setting for a specific series.

Time Range

Heatmap Panel

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 16:15:04 -0700

Heatmap Panel

New panel only available in Grafana v4.3+

The Heatmap panel allows you to view histograms over time. To fully understand and use this panel you need understand what Histograms are and how they are created. Read on below to for a quick introduction to the term Histogram.

Histograms and buckets

A histogram is a graphical representation of the distribution of numerical data. You group values into buckets (some times also called bins) and then count how many values fall into each bucket. Instead of graphing the actual values you then graph the buckets. Each bar represents a bucket and the bar height represents the frequency (i.e. count) of values that fell into that bucket’s interval.

Example Histogram:

The above histogram shows us that most value distribution of a couple of time series. We can easily see that most values land between 240-300 with a peak between 260-280. Histograms just look at value distributions over specific time range. So you cannot see any trend or changes in the distribution over time, this is where heatmaps become useful.

Heatmap

A Heatmap is like a histogram but over time where each time slice represents its own histogram. Instead of using bar height as a representation of frequency you use cells and color the cell proportional to the number of values in the bucket.

Example:

Here we can clearly see what values are more common and how they trend over time.

Data Options

Data and bucket options can be found in the Axes tab.

Data Formats

Data format	Description
Time series	Grafana does the bucketing by going through all time series values. The bucket sizes & intervals will be determined using the Buckets options.
Time series buckets	Each time series already represents a Y-Axis bucket. The time series name (alias) needs to be a numeric value representing the upper interval for the bucket. Grafana does no bucketing so the bucket size options are hidden.

Bucket Size

The Bucket count & size options are used by Grafana to calculate how big each cell in the heatmap is. You can define the bucket size either by count (the first input box) or by specifying a size interval. For the Y-Axis the size interval is just a value but for the X-bucket you can specify a time range in the Size input, for example, the time range 1h. This will make the cells 1h wide on the X-axis.

Pre-bucketed data

If you have a data that is already organized into buckets you can use the Time series buckets data format. This format requires that your metric query return regular time series and that each time series has a numeric name that represent the upper or lower bound of the interval.

The only data source that supports histograms over time is Elasticsearch. You do this by adding a Histogram bucket aggregation before the Date Histogram.

You control the size of the buckets using the Histogram interval (Y-Axis) and the Date Histogram interval (X-axis).

Display Options

In the heatmap Display tab you define how the cells are rendered and what color they are assigned.

Color Mode & Spectrum

The color spectrum controls the mapping between value count (in each bucket) and the color assigned to each bucket. The left most color on the spectrum represents the minimum count and the color on the right most side represents the maximum count. Some color schemes are automatically inverted when using the light theme.

You can also change the color mode to Opacity. In this case, the color will not change but the amount of opacity will change with the bucket count.

Raw data vs aggregated

If you use the heatmap with regular time series data (not pre-bucketed). Then it’s important to keep in mind that your data is often already by aggregated by your time series backend. Most time series queries do not return raw sample data but include a group by time interval or maxDataPoints limit coupled with an aggregation function (usually average).

This all depends on the time range of your query of course. But the important point is to know that the Histogram bucketing that Grafana performs may be done on already aggregated and averaged data. To get more accurate heatmaps it is better to do the bucketing during metric collection or store the data in Elasticsearch, which currently is the only data source data supports doing Histogram bucketing on the raw data.

If you remove or lower the group by time (or raise maxDataPoints) in your query to return more data points your heatmap will be more accurate but this can also be very CPU & Memory taxing for your browser and could cause hangs and crashes if the number of data points becomes unreasonably large.

Singlestat Panel

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 16:15:04 -0700

Singlestat Panel

The Singlestat Panel allows you to show the one main summary stat of a SINGLE series. It reduces the series into a single number (by looking at the max, min, average, or sum of values in the series). Singlestat also provides thresholds to color the stat or the Panel background. It can also translate the single number into a text value, and show a sparkline summary of the series.

Singlestat Panel Configuration

The singlestat panel has a normal query editor to allow you define your exact metric queries like many other Panels. Through the Options tab, you can access the Singlestat-specific functionality.

Big Value: Big Value refers to how we display the main stat for the Singlestat Panel. This is always a single value that is displayed in the Panel in between two strings, Prefix and Suffix. The single number is calculated by choosing a function (min,max,average,current,total) of your metric query. This functions reduces your query into a single numeric value.
Font Size: You can use this section to select the font size of the different texts in the Singlestat Panel, i.e. prefix, value and postfix.
Values: The Value fields let you set the function (min, max, average, current, total, first, delta, range) that your entire query is reduced into a single value with. You can also set the font size of the Value field and font-size (as a %) of the metric query that the Panel is configured with. This reduces the entire query into a single summary value that is displayed.
- min - The smallest value in the series
- max - The largest value in the series
- avg - The average of all the non-null values in the series
- current - The last value in the series. If the series ends on null the previous value will be used.
- total - The sum of all the non-null values in the series
- first - The first value in the series
- delta - The total incremental increase (of a counter) in the series. An attempt is made to account for counter resets, but this will only be accurate for single instance metrics. Used to show total counter increase in time series.
- diff - The difference between ‘current’ (last value) and ‘first’.
- range - The difference between ‘min’ and ‘max’. Useful the show the range of change for a gauge.
Postfixes: The Postfix fields let you define a custom label and font-size (as a %) to appear after the value
Units: Units are appended to the the Singlestat within the panel, and will respect the color and threshold settings for the value.
Decimals: The Decimal field allows you to override the automatic decimal precision, and set it explicitly.

Coloring

The coloring options of the Singlestat Panel config allow you to dynamically change the colors based on the Singlestat value.

Background: This checkbox applies the configured thresholds and colors to the entirety of the Singlestat Panel background.
Value: This checkbox applies the configured thresholds and colors to the summary stat.
Thresholds: Change the background and value colors dynamically within the panel, depending on the Singlestat value. The threshold field accepts 2 comma-separated values which represent 3 ranges that correspond to the three colors directly to the right. For example: if the thresholds are 70, 90 then the first color represents < 70, the second color represents between 70 and 90 and the third color represents > 90.
Colors: Select a color and opacity
Invert order: This link toggles the threshold color order.
For example: Green, Orange, Red () will become Red, Orange, Green ().

Spark Lines

Sparklines are a great way of seeing the historical data related to the summary stat, providing valuable context at a glance. Sparklines act differently than traditional Graph Panels and do not include x or y axis, coordinates, a legend, or ability to interact with the graph.

Show: The show checkbox will toggle whether the spark line is shown in the Panel. When unselected, only the Singlestat value will appear.
Background: Check if you want the sparklines to take up the full panel width, or uncheck if they should be below the main Singlestat value.
Line Color: This color selection applies to the color of the sparkline itself.
Fill Color: This color selection applies to the area below the sparkline.

Pro-tip: Reduce the opacity on fill colors for nice looking panels.

Value to text mapping

Value to text mapping allows you to translate the value of the summary stat into explicit text. The text will respect all styling, thresholds and customization defined for the value. This can be useful to translate the number of the main Singlestat value into a context-specific human-readable word or message.

Troubleshooting

Multiple Series Error

Grafana 2.5 introduced stricter checking for multiple-series on singlestat panels. In previous versions, the panel logic did not verify that only a single series was used, and instead, displayed the first series encountered. Depending on your data source, this could have lead to inconsistent data being shown and/or a general confusion about which metric was being displayed.

To fix your singlestat panel:

Edit your panel by clicking the Panel Title and selecting Edit.
Do you have multiple queries in the metrics tab?
- Solution: Select a single query to visualize. You can toggle whether a query is visualized by clicking the eye icon on each line. If the error persists, continue to the next solution.
Do you have one query?
- Solution: This likely means your query is returning multiple series. You will want to reduce this down to a single series. This can be accomplished in many ways, depending on your data source. Some common practices include summing the series, averaging or any number of other functions. Consult the documentation for your data source for additional information.

Table Panel

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 16:15:04 -0700

Table Panel

The new table panel is very flexible, supporting both multiple modes for time series as well as for table, annotation and raw JSON data. It also provides date formatting and value formatting and coloring options.

To view table panels in action and test different configurations with sample data, check out the Table Panel Showcase in the Grafana Playground.

Options overview

The table panel has many ways to manipulate your data for optimal presentation.

Data: Control how your query is transformed into a table.
Table Display: Table display options.
Column Styles: Column value formatting and display options.

Data to Table

The data section contains the To Table Transform (1). This is the primary option for how your data/metric query should be transformed into a table format. The Columns (2) option allows you to select what columns you want in the table. Only applicable for some transforms.

Time series to rows

In the most simple mode you can turn time series to rows. This means you get a Time, Metric and a Value column. Where Metric is the name of the time series.

Time series to columns

This transform allows you to take multiple time series and group them by time. Which will result in the primary column being Time and a column for each time series.

Time series aggregations

This table transformation will lay out your table into rows by metric, allowing columns of Avg, Min, Max, Total, Current and Count. More than one column can be added.

Annotations

If you have annotations enabled in the dashboard you can have the table show them. If you configure this mode then any queries you have in the metrics tab will be ignored.

JSON Data

If you have an Elasticsearch Raw Document query or an Elasticsearch query without a date histogram use this transform mode and pick the columns using the Columns section.

Table Display

Pagination (Page Size): The table display fields allow you to control The Pagination (page size) is the threshold at which the table rows will be broken into pages. For example, if your table had 95 records with a pagination value of 10, your table would be split across 9 pages.
Scroll: The scroll bar checkbox toggles the ability to scroll within the panel, when unchecked, the panel height will grow to display all rows.
Font Size: The font size field allows you to increase or decrease the size for the panel, relative to the default font size.

Column Styles

The column styles allow you control how dates and numbers are formatted.

Name or regex: The Name or Regex field controls what columns the rule should be applied to. The regex or name filter will be matched against the column name not against column values.
Type: The three supported types of types are Number, String and Date.
Title: Title for the column, when using a Regex the title can include replacement strings like $1.
Format: Specify date format. Only available when Type is set to Date.
Coloring and Thresholds: Specify color mode and thresholds limits.
Unit and Decimals: Specify unit and decimal precision for numbers.
Add column style rule: Add new column rule.