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How to Use Dashboard Studio

7 min read Platform

Dashboard Studio is Nova's drag-and-drop dashboard builder. Create custom dashboards that combine metrics, logs, traces, and incident data into a single, real-time view. Share them with your team via link or embed them on internal portals.

Steps

1

Create a new dashboard

Go to Dashboards > New Dashboard. Give it a name and optional description. Choose a layout: freeform grid or auto-flow columns.

2

Add widgets

Click Add Widget: and choose from the available types:

  • Time Series: line/area charts for metrics over time
  • Single Value: big number display (e.g., current error rate)
  • Table: tabular data from logs or metrics
  • Heatmap: latency distribution visualization
  • Service Map: live topology of your services
  • Incident List: active incidents feed
  • Log Stream: real-time log tail
3

Configure each widget

Click on a widget to open its editor. Write a query, choose the visualization type, set colors and thresholds. The preview updates in real time as you edit.

4

Arrange and resize

Drag widgets to reposition them. Grab the corner handles to resize. The grid snaps to help keep things aligned.

5

Add template variables

Create dropdown filters at the top of your dashboard so viewers can switch between environments, services, or time ranges without editing queries.

Variable: $environment Values: production, staging, development Default: production
Tip:

Use the AI Layout: feature to describe what you want in plain English ("show me API latency, error rate, and active incidents for the checkout service") and Nova will build the dashboard for you.

6

Share and collaborate

Click Share: to generate a link or embed code. You can set permissions: view-only, edit access, or public (no login required). Dashboards support real-time collaboration, multiple people can edit simultaneously.

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