3.1.3 "Exploring" Your New Aggregate Data

What

Before you build a formal Grafana panel, it often helps to look at the aggregated data directly. The Explore view is the fastest way to sanity-check what your report is producing.

When/Why

Use Explore after the report’s Prometheus scrape has been configured and you have access to the Dashboard’s Prometheus data source. Keep the source FileWave report and its ID available so you can compare the metric with the records being counted. If you want to build a grouped visualization directly from a FileWave report instead, follow Using Grafana for Data Aggregation.

If no data appears, confirm the selected data source, report ID and time range before changing the panel. On a self-managed Server, an authorized server administrator can use Testing the Prometheus Scrape to check the scrape target. Hosted customers should have FileWave Technical Support check server-side scrape configuration rather than attempt the SSH steps.

How

Aggregated inventory-query data is exposed in Dashboard metrics as filewave_inventory_query_<id>, where <id> is the report ID you used. The attached video shows the Explore workflow for one of those metrics. Its example uses report 41; use your own report ID rather than copying the example number.

1. Open Explore in Grafana and select the Prometheus data source used by your FileWave Dashboard. The video shows it named FileWave Prometheus.
2. Enter the metric for your report and run the query. Select a time range that includes recent scrapes.
3. Read the grouped labels and values in the result table. For this client-version count, each row represents a version and the value is the count for that version, not an individual device record.
4. Compare the grouped counts with the source report. Check its filters and grouping fields if the result does not represent the devices you intended to count.

In this example, the data is no longer shown as five separate records. Instead, it has been grouped into three records because only three different FileWave client versions are present across the endpoints. The example values are 1, 2, and 2, accounting for the five source records. Your labels and counts will depend on your report. Once the grouped result matches the intended report, continue to Creating your Data Panel to build a chart, such as a pie chart.