Important: This documentation is about an older version. It's relevant only to the release noted, many of the features and functions have been updated or replaced. Please view the current version.

Data sources

Azure Monitor

Azure Monitor template variables

Enterprise Open source

Template variables

Instead of hard-coding values for fields like resource group or resource name in your queries, you can use variables in their place to create more interactive, dynamic, and reusable dashboards.

Check out the Templating documentation for an introduction to the templating feature and the different types of template variables.

The Azure Monitor data source provides the following queries you can specify in the Query field in the Variable edit view

Name	Description
`Subscriptions()`	Returns subscriptions.
`ResourceGroups()`	Returns resource groups.
`ResourceGroups(subscriptionID)`	Returns resource groups for a specified subscription.
`Namespaces(aResourceGroup)`	Returns namespaces for the default subscription and specified resource group.
`Namespaces(subscriptionID, aResourceGroup)`	Returns namespaces for the specified subscription and resource group.
`ResourceNames(aResourceGroup, aNamespace)`	Returns a list of resource names.
`ResourceNames(subscriptionID, aResourceGroup, aNamespace)`	Returns a list of resource names for a specified subscription.
`MetricNamespace(aResourceGroup, aNamespace, aResourceName)`	Returns a list of metric namespaces.
`MetricNamespace(subscriptionID, aResourceGroup, aNamespace, aResourceName)`	Returns a list of metric namespaces for a specified subscription.
`MetricNames(aResourceGroup, aMetricDefinition, aResourceName, aMetricNamespace)`	Returns a list of metric names.
`MetricNames(aSubscriptionID, aMetricDefinition, aResourceName, aMetricNamespace)`	Returns a list of metric names for a specified subscription.
`workspaces()`	Returns a list of workspaces for the default subscription.
`workspaces(subscriptionID)`	Returns a list of workspaces for the specified subscription (the parameter can be quoted or unquoted).

Where a subscription ID is not specified, a default subscription must be specified in the data source configuration, which will be used.

Any Log Analytics KQL query that returns a single list of values can also be used in the Query field. For example:

Query	Description
`workspace("myWorkspace").Heartbeat \| distinct Computer`	Returns a list of Virtual Machines
`workspace("$workspace").Heartbeat \| distinct Computer`	Returns a list of Virtual Machines with template variable
`workspace("$workspace").Perf \| distinct ObjectName`	Returns a list of objects from the Perf table
`workspace("$workspace").Perf \| where ObjectName == "$object"` `\| distinct CounterName`	Returns a list of metric names from the Perf table

Example of a time series query using variables:

Perf
| where ObjectName == "$object" and CounterName == "$metric"
| where TimeGenerated >= $__timeFrom() and TimeGenerated <= $__timeTo()
| where  $__contains(Computer, $computer)
| summarize avg(CounterValue) by bin(TimeGenerated, $__interval), Computer
| order by TimeGenerated asc

Limitations

As of Grafana 9.0, a resource URI is constructed to identify resources using the resource picker. On dashboards created prior to Grafana 9.0, Grafana automatically migrates any queries using the prior resource-picking mechanism to use this method.

Some resource types use nested namespaces and resource names, such as Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/tableServices and storageAccount/default, or Microsoft.Sql/servers/databases and serverName/databaseName. Such template variables cannot be used because the result could be a malformed resource URI.

Supported cases

Standard namespaces and resource names

metricDefinition = $ns
$ns = Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines
resourceName = $rs
$rs = testvirtualmachine

Namespaces with a non-templated sub-namespace

metricDefinition = $ns/tableServices
$ns = Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts
resourceName = $rs/default
$rs = storageaccount

Storage namespaces missing the `default` keyword

metricDefinition = $ns/tableServices
$ns = Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts
resourceName = $rs
$rs = storageaccount

Namespaces with a templated sub-namespace

metricDefinition = $ns/$sns
$ns = Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts
$sns = tableServices
resourceName = $rs
$rs = storageaccount

Unsupported case

If a dashboard uses this unsupported case, migrate it to one of the supported cases.

If a namespace or resource name template variable contains multiple segments, Grafana will construct the resource URI incorrectly because the template variable cannot be appropriately split.

For example:

metricDefinition = $ns
resourceName = $rs
$ns = 'Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/tableServices'
$rs = 'storageaccount/default'

This would result in an incorrect resource URI containing Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/tableServices/storageaccount/default. However, the correct URI would have the format Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/storageaccount/tableServices/default.

An appropriate fix would be to update the template variable that does not match a supported case. If the namespace variable $ns is of the form Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/tableServices this could be split into two variables: $ns1 = Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts and $ns2 = tableServices. The metric definition would then take the form $ns1/$ns2 which leads to a correctly formatted URI.