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Data Visualization

Timeplus provides out-of-box streaming charts and dashboards to visualize the real-time data and understand the pattern/trend. You can also integrate Timeplus with your external BI systems, such as Redash, Metabase, Grafana, etc.

Chart​

After you run a query, you can switch to the Visualization tab to turn the results into a chart. We offer different chart types for your use cases:

Line chart​

Line charts work best with time series data.

  • Data settings:

    • X-axis: Event Time (_tp_time), or Arrival Time(when the browser gets the data point), or a custom column.
    • Y-axis: a custom column in numeric data types (int/float/etc)
    • Color: by default None is selected. You can choose a categorical column and draw a line for each unique value of the column value in different colors.

  • Format settings:

    • X-axis title and the data range(last 1 minute, last 1 hour, all time, etc.). By default, 'Last 1 minute' is selected. If you are running a historical query, please change it to 'All time'.
    • Y-axis title, min/max value, line color, style
    • Show/hide the data label for the last value of the line chart, number of decimal and whether to show prefix/surfix as unit.
    • Show/hide grid lines
    • Show/hide legend
    • Show/hide data points

Area chart​

Shows a stacked area chart, with the same format settings as Line Chart.

Column chart​

  • Data settings:

    • X-axis: a categorical column
    • Y-axis: a numeric column
    • Color: whether to show grouped data in either stack mode or dodge mode.
    • Update mode: append only, or show data points from the last timestamp, or choose a key column as show latest data value for each key value.

  • Format settings:

    • X-axis title, Y-axis title, column color, show/hide data label (with decimal and prefix/surfix unit), show/hide grid lines, show/hide legend

Bar chart​

Similar to Column chart, with data points shown as horizontal bars instead of vertical columns. Best fit for show top-N values.

Single value chart​

  • Data settings:

    • choose a numeric column to show its value

  • Format settings:

    • Number of decimal
    • Font size
    • Unit as suffix or prefix
    • Show/hide sparkline
    • Show/hide delta for last value vs. the current value

Map chart​

Currently only available on https://us.timeplus.cloud as a preview feature.

  • Data settings:

    • choose the column for longtitude and latitude.
    • color: whether to show grouped data in either stack mode or dodge mode.
    • update mode: append only, or show data points from the last timestamp, or choose a key column as show latest data value for each key value.

  • Format settings:

    • Map size (TO BE UPDATED)

Table​

Shows the data as a list table.

  • Data settings
    • Maximum row count.
    • Update mode:
      • Show All: show all query results (limited by the maxium row count)
      • By Time: show data points from the last timestamp
      • By Key: choose a key column as show latest row for each key value.
  • Format settings
    • For each column, you can choose to show or hide it, or set column width and decimal for numeric columns.
    • Conditional formatting: highlight a cell or an entire row if the value meets a certain condition you've set

Charts can be added to the dashboard by clicking the Add to dashboard button on the right.

Dashboard​

One or more dashboards can be created in each workspace to tell stories about your data.

You can set a name and optional description for each dashboard.

One or more charts can be added to the dashboard, with 3 size options:

  • Small: takes up 1/4 of the page width
  • Medium: takes up 1/2 of the page width
  • Large: takes up entire page width

Dashboard filters and query variables​

As a new feature, you can add filters in dashboards. Here is an example if you want to list speeding vehicles.

First, in the query page, to run a SQL with a fixed condition, e.g.

select * from car_live_data where speed > 80

Run the query and make sure it meets your need.

Then you can change the fixed condition with a query variable, e.g.

select * from car_live_data where speed > {{speed_limit}}

The query editor will show a text input for the value of speed_limit. You can put a value and run the parameterized query and turn it to a visualization and add to a new dashboard or an existing dashboard.

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Please make sure the SQL syntax is correct with query variables. For example if you are filtering with a string value, you should add quote around the variable placeholder, e.g. 

select * from car_live_data where cid='{{car_id}}'

In the dashboard, you need to add a filter, either as a text input or a drop down. Define the variable id as speed_limit, set a label and default value. For drop down list, you can choose to load the options from a SQL (you should run a bounded queries to get distinct value, such as select distinct cid from table(dim_car_info))

After you save the dashboard, in the dashboard view mode, you can change the value of the filter. Those panels with SQL referring to the same variables will be re-ran.

Integration with External BI​

You can call Timeplus SDK to load the data and render the chart with 3rd party charting libraries. We also built experimental plugins to work with redash, metabase, Grafana, etc.

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The Timeplus datasource plugin for Grafana is in the early stage. Please contact us to arrange the integration.