Controls visualization

By adding a Controls visualization, you can create interactive controls for easy dashboard manipulation.

When the priority is to immediately see the most important metadata fields and quickly cycle through values, input controls can prove to be a useful addition to a dashboard.

The following options are available:

  • An options list (or dropdown menu) allows you to select data from a specific field in an index.

  • A range slider allows you to select value ranges.

Because input controls do not inherit the current dashboard filters, they always list all possible values.

Example

An analyst is interested in finding out about seed investments in companies that fall within a specific value range.

On the investments dashboard, they add both an options list to filter by field and a range slider to filter by numerical values.

They can then filter the investments data down by the 'seed' field, and use the range slider to filter by the numerical range of the investments. Now, with these filters applied, only the data that they wanted to display is represented in the dashboard.

Creating an Options list visualization

  1. On the Controls tab, specify a label for the visualization.

  2. Select the index pattern search that you want it to be applied to.

  3. Optional: Select the Enable Multiselect checkbox to allow the user to select more than one option.

  4. Specify the size of the option list.

  5. Optional: On the Options tab, you can select one of the following checkboxes:

    1. Update Siren filters on each change - By default, buttons appear in the visualization allowing you to apply or cancel your changes each time you use the controls. Select this checkbox to apply the filters instantaneously without using the buttons.

    2. Use time filter - If your index contains time-based events and a time-field is configured for the selected index pattern, this option uses that time filter to display only the data within the specified time range.

  6. Click Apply changes and either add another visualization or click Save and add it to the dashboard.

Creating a Range slider visualization

  1. On the Controls tab, specify a label for the visualization.

  2. Select the index pattern search that you want it to be applied to.

  3. Specify the field that you want it to be applied to.

  4. Specify the value of the step size. For example, a step size of 5 will allow you to slide the range bar up or down in multiples of 5.

  5. Specify how many decimal places to display in the numerical values.

  6. Optional: Select the Include Lower Bound checkbox to ensure that the results include the lowest available value. By default, the range allows greater than, but not equal to the lowest value.

  7. Optional: Select the Include Upper Bound checkbox to ensure that the results include the highest available value. By default, the range allows less than, but not equal to the highest value.

  8. Optional: On the Options tab, you can select one of the following checkboxes:

    1. Update Siren filters on each change - By default, buttons appear in the visualization allowing you to apply or cancel your changes each time you use the controls. Select this checkbox to apply the filters instantaneously without using the buttons.

    2. Use time filter - If your index contains time-based events and a time-field is configured for the selected index pattern, this option uses that time filter to display only the data within the specified time range.

  9. Click Apply changes and either add another visualization or click Save and add it to your dashboard.