Open source Enterprise Grafana Cloud

Reference data

Reference data lets you store small static datasets directly in your data source configuration. Use this feature to define data once and query it from multiple dashboards without re-entering the same data in each query.

Before you begin

  • Ensure you have the Infinity data source installed and configured
  • Have administrator access to edit the data source configuration

Use cases

  • Store lookup tables for mapping codes to descriptions
  • Define static configuration data used across multiple dashboards
  • Store small reference datasets that don’t change frequently

Supported formats

Reference data supports the following formats:

  • JSON
  • CSV
  • TSV
  • XML
  • HTML

Configure reference data

  1. Navigate to Connections > Data sources and select your Infinity data source.
  2. Scroll to the Reference data section.
  3. Click Add Reference Data.
  4. Enter a unique Name for the reference data (for example, servers.csv or region-codes.json).
  5. Enter the data in the Data field using your chosen format.
  6. Click Save & test.

You can add multiple reference data entries to a single data source instance.

Note

Reference data names must be unique within a data source instance. If duplicate names exist, the first matching entry is returned.

Query reference data

  1. In the query editor, set Source to Reference.
  2. Select your reference data from the Reference drop-down.
  3. Configure the Type to match your data format (JSON, CSV, XML, etc.).
  4. Set the Format and configure columns as needed.

Provision reference data

You can configure reference data through provisioning:

YAML
apiVersion: 1
datasources:
  - name: Infinity
    type: yesoreyeram-infinity-datasource
    jsonData:
      refData:
        - name: servers.csv
          data: |
            id,name,region,status
            1,server-a,us-east,active
            2,server-b,eu-west,active
            3,server-c,ap-south,maintenance
        - name: regions.json
          data: |
            [
              {"code": "us-east", "name": "US East"},
              {"code": "eu-west", "name": "EU West"},
              {"code": "ap-south", "name": "Asia Pacific"}
            ]

Size limits

Warning

Reference data is designed for small datasets of less than 10 MB. Larger datasets may affect Grafana and plugin performance. For larger datasets, use URL-based queries instead.