Getting Started
SquaredUp is a unified visibility layer that provides an end-to-end view of all your business-critical applications. Connect to 100+ data sources through a versatile interface offering flexible dashboarding, effortless monitoring, powerful analytics, and universal search across your tech stack. Powered by our data mesh architecture, SquaredUp lets you correlate your data across teams and tools – all without the costs and complexity of a data warehouse.
Are you ready to visualize your data? This article will walk you through the basics and get you set up with the building blocks for full visibility across your tools and services.
If you have yet to sign up, create a free account here.
Connect to your data
First, let's connect SquaredUp to a data source that you use regularly, so you can visualize data that is useful to your organization.
Plugins connect SquaredUp to your data sources. There are lots of plugins available with new ones being made available regularly. Plugins can be used to add new data sources from Data sources in the navigation menu. Most data sources need credentials like an API key, access token or other authentication methods.
Adding a new data sourceData sources can be added inside a workspace:
Click +Add new data source.
Alternatively, you could select + icon next to Data Sources on the left-hand menu.
The Add a data source page will appear.
You can filter data sources by selecting a category from the list on the left, for example: CI/CD Tools.
You are also able to search for data sources at the top of the page.
Click on the data source that you wish to add.
Display Name:
Enter a name for your data source. This helps you to identify this data source in the list of your data sources.
Enter the credentials for your data source. Each data source may have slightly different fields to fill out. See individual data source documentation for more information:
Install Sample Dashboards:
Select whether you would like to install sample dashboards with the data source. By default, this is set to on.
This setting will only appear as an option for data sources with sample dashboards.
Select whether you would like to restrict access to the data source.
Restrict access to this data source?The term data source here really means data source instance. For example, a user may configure two instances of the AWS data source, one for their development environment and one for production. In that case, each data source instance has its own access control settings.
By default, Restrict access to this data source? is set to off. The data source can be viewed, edited and administered by anyone. If you would like to control who has access to this data source, switch Restrict access to this data source? to on.
Use the Restrict access to this data source? dropdown to control who has access to the workspace:
By default, the user setting the permissions for the data source will be given Full Control and the Everyone group will be given Link to workspace permissions.
Tailor access to the data source, as required, by selecting individual users or user groups from the dropdown and giving them Link to workspace or Full Control permissions.
If the user is not available from the dropdown, you are able to invite them to the data source by typing in their email address and then clicking Add. The new user will then receive an email inviting them to create an account on SquaredUp. Once the account has been created, they will gain access to the tenant.
At least one user or group must be given Full Control.
Admin users can edit the configuration, modify the Access Control List (ACL) and delete the data source, regardless of the ACL chosen.
Data source access levelsAccess Level:
Link to workspace
- User can link the data source to any workspace they have at least Editor permissions for.
- Data from the data source can then be viewed by anyone with any access to the workspace.
User can share the data source data with anyone they want.
User cannot configure the data source in any way, or delete it.
Full Control - User can change the data source configuration, ACL, and delete the data source.
See Access control for more information.
Click Save.
The data source will be added to the current workspace. If sample dashboards exist for a data source, they will automatically be added to that workspace.
What is a workspace?A workspace is a way to divide your organization into categories that make sense for you. You can create workspaces per user, per application, per location, per data source... it's completely up to you. Each workspace has its own dashboards, data sources, monitors and scopes. You never lose access to any data by creating new workspaces, it's just a way of tidying up your work environment, like you would do with folders.
Once you have added a data source, it will be listed under Data Sources on the left-hand menu, and the overview page will appear. Each data source has a data source overview page, which is a management page showing all the indexed objects.
More about the data source overview pageA data source overview page will show:
Name of the data source
Index status of the data source:
Connected – everything is working correctly.
Failed – the data source configuration failed. Click More Info to find out more about the issue with the data source.
When the last object finished indexing – objects are automatically indexed every 12 hours. Admin users can use the Refresh button next to the status to manually index objects.
Manage – admin users can use this to manage the data source configuration.
Editing a data source configuration will change it for all workspaces that use it in SquaredUp.
Remove – admin users can use this to remove the data source from the workspace.
Any dashboard tiles using this data source in the workspace will no longer work.
Overview of the objects for the data source
More about Data Sources
Visualize your data
Many data sources come with dashboards, so you may be looking at your data in powerful graphs on a dashboard right now. You can customize these dashboards by editing tiles or adding ones. Or you can create a new dashboard and add tiles to visualize your data. Let's add a visualization by adding a data tile to a dashboard. Click the + next to Dashboards on the left-hand menu to create a new dashboard.
Configuring a data tile on a dashboardOn the dashboard, hover where you'd like to place a visualization, and click the + that appears. Click on the Data icon, the tile editor will appear.
The tile editor allows you to configure the data from your data sources and display it in any way you wish. Steps may vary depending on which data stream you select. You can add a title and description for your tile at the top of tile editor.
Data StreamThe first step is to select which data stream you want to use. You will see a list of all available data streams for your indexed data sources. If you need to index a new data source, select the + icon next to Data Source filter.
You can search for data streams at the top, or filter data streams by Data Source, Data Stream Type or Object Scope.
For each data stream in the list of available data streams you will see:
Name of the data stream
Data source
Data stream type (Scoped or Global)
Object scope
Whether the data stream is configurable – configurable data streams are represented by a cog icon. User-configured data streams are represented by a user icon.
Select the data stream that you want to use and then click Next.
Help with configuring data streams specific to your data source can be found in each specific data source article:
ObjectsThe Objects tab of the tile editor will only need to be completed if you selected a Scoped data stream in the previous step. You will see a list of all available objects for the selected data stream.
You can search for objects at the top, or filter objects by Data Source or Type. To narrow results down further, additional filters can be used by selecting Add Filter.
For each object in the list of available objects you will see:
Name of the object
Data source
Type
Select the objects that you want to add by using the checkbox next to each object name.
Alternatively, turn on Dynamic selection in the top right corner. Dynamic selection will select all objects that match the filters, including objects that are indexed at a later date.
Once you have finished selecting objects, click Next.
QueryThe Query tab of the tile editor will only need to be completed if you selected a Configurable data stream. Complete each field to configure the data stream how you wish.
Query fields will vary depending on which configurable data stream you selected.
Click Next.
TimeframeSelect a timeframe for the tile. By default, the timeframe is set to the dashboard timeframe.
ShapingFiltering
Data can be filtered according to whether data in a column meets or does not meet specified text or numerical value conditions. Depending on the data you are filtering, available options include: Equals, Not equals, Contains, Doesn't contain, Less than, Greater than, Before now, After now.
Dates can be filtered by Before now or After now (e.g. to show overdue orders). Text matching is case sensitive.
You are able to add multiple filter conditions. Available options are:
AND – all conditions must be satisfied (e.g.
Status-Equals-ClosedANDType-Equals-Question).OR – any condition can be satisfied (e.g.
Status-Equals-PendingORStatus-Equals-Closed).
Group by
You can group and aggregate data by column.
For example, for AWS cost data you might Group by
label, choose Aggregation typeTotalwith Aggregation columnAmount, to show a table or bar chart of cost per label.Which columns are available depends on the data stream you chose.
Configuring grouping will enable different visualizations to be displayed, such as bar chart and donut. For example, grouping tickets by channel will allow you to show a donut of how many tickets were logged by email vs web form.
Bucket by
If you group by a time column, and further grouping is possible, then the Bucket by dropdown will appear, which allows you to control how the time data is grouped, for example by
hour,day,monthetc.Aggregation type and column
Using this dropdown you can choose how to summarize your data, for example as a
count,averageortotal.For example, for a Bar Chart of ticket data you might Group by
Date created, choose Bucket byDaywith Aggregation typeCount, to show a line graph of tickets per day. Or for a Bar Chart of Azure Resource Group cost you might Group byTimestamp, Bucket byDay, Aggregation typeTotaland Aggregate columnCost.Data can be sorted by column in ascending or descending order. This sets the default sort order, but users can click on a column heading to sort data in a table on the fly.
Ticking Top and typing a number will show the top n rows of data.
VisualizationSelect the visualization for your tile. Which visualizations are offered to you depends on the data available, for example Line Graph will only be offered if there is time series data.
Bar Chart settings
X-axis data Choose which data to show on the x-axis. Auto <column> shows the column which was selected automatically for you, usually a time field for the x-axis. Y-axis data Choose which data to show on the y-axis. Auto <column> shows the column which was selected automatically for you, usually a numerical field for the y-axis. Y-axis range Auto - graph is fitted to the data automatically
Percentage - shows 0-100
Fit to data from zero - shows from 0 to the data maximum
Custom - allows you to specify the min and maxX-axis label Allows you to override the default and enter a label, for example DateorTime.Y-axis label Allows you to override the default and enter a label, for example Ticketsorms.Blocks settings
Sublabel Choose the sublabel to be shown beneath the main block label Columns Set the number of columns the blocks are displayed in Reset - reverts to the default settings.
Gauge settings
The Gauge visualization shows a single value, often a percentage, in relation to minimum and maximum values. Monitoring can be added so the gauge color changes based on your configured parameters.
Data Choose which column or count to use as the value for the gauge. Auto <column> shows the column which was selected automatically for you. Range Specify the min and max of the gauge Label Add a label to be shown beneath the gauge Monitoring You can configure Monitoring (from the Monitoring tab) and then the colors configured for the conditions will show on the gauge. Check that the Data chosen in the Visualization (e.g. count) and the Value (and Column where applicable) that you are Monitoring (e.g.count) are as intended.Stacked Bar settings
Type Specify how to group bars, either stacked in a single bar or grouped as separate bars. Mode Percentage mode displays a series as a percentage of the overall bar, only available for Grouped charts. Layout Vertical or horizontal Y-axis range Auto - graph is fitted to the data automatically
Percentage - shows 0-100
Fit to data from zero - shows from 0 to the data maximum
Custom - allows you to specify the min and maxX-axis label Allows you to override the default and enter a label, for example DateorTime.Y-axis label Allows you to override the default and enter a label, for example Ticketsorms.X-axis data Choose which data to show on the x-axis. Auto <column> shows the column which was selected automatically for you, usually a time field for the x-axis. X-axis grouping Choose how the stack is split into segments, usually a label or a string. Y-axis data Choose which data to show on the y-axis. Auto <column> shows the column which was selected automatically for you, usually a numerical field for the y-axis. Line Graph settings
X-axis data Choose which data to show on the x-axis. Auto <column> shows the column which was selected automatically for you, usually a time field for the x-axis. Y-axis data Choose which data to show on the y-axis. Auto <column> shows the column which was selected automatically for you, usually a numerical field for the y-axis. Y-axis range Auto - graph is fitted to the data automatically
Percentage - shows 0-100
Fit to data from zero - shows from 0 to the data maximum
Custom - allows you to specify the min and maxData points This shows where the data points are on the line. Useful to identify missing points, or detail for changing data. Shading Adds shading below each line. X-axis label Allows you to override the default and enter a label, for example DateorTime.Y-axis label Allows you to override the default and enter a label, for example Ticketsorms.Scalar settings
Source Column Choose the column to be used. The default is auto, where the column is chosen by the visualization.Label Enter a label, for example Ticketsorms.Show formatted value This shows a simplified value. Toggle to Off to show the raw value. (On by default) Reset - reverts to the default settings.
Table settings
Sort order Click and drag a column name to change their order. Hide/show Click on the Toggle visibility eye button to hide or show a column. Resizing columns Use the handle on each column of the table to change the width. Changes will be saved while in the tile editor or in dashboard edit mode. Filtering, grouping and sorting of the data can be configured in the data stream advanced settings.
Reset - reverts to the default settings.
These steps describe the simple tile editor. Advanced users might like to try the SQL Analytics editor see SQL Analytics (Beta).
You can also configure Monitoring and KPIs in the tile configuration:
For more about how to edit dashboards, or add text and image tiles see Dashboards
Add your team
Add your colleagues as users, for a more collaborative approach, and so they can also explore the visualizations available.
How to add a user Go to Settings > Users.
Click Add User.
Email:
Enter the email address of the user that you want to add.
Add to User Group(s):
Select which user group(s) you would like to add the new user to from the dropdown.
New users are automatically included in the Everyone group.
Click Done.
More about Users
Add Monitoring and Notifications
SquaredUp shows you red, amber or green status indicators so you can instantly see if everything is ok or if something needs your attention. The indicators can be seen in several places, for example as dot icons next to a workspace's name or as a highlight color on dashboards.
More about Monitoring
SquaredUp can alert you when the health state of a monitored workspace changes by sending notifications.
Simply add a new notification channel in Settings > Notifications, and configure any settings needed in your target system.
More about Health notifications
Share your dashboard with other users
Take a look at sharing view-only access to your dashboard with users that don't have a SquaredUp user license.
What is Sharing?Sharing allows an unlimited number of view-only dashboards to be shared with anyone, without requiring a user license, and is available with any paid plans. The URL of a shared dashboard can be distributed, for example via email, or can be shown on wall monitors.
Users who can see shared dashboards can see the whole dashboard, which updates as normal, but these users cannot click to interact with the data.
Shared dashboards:
Do not consume a user license.
Refresh as normal, every minute.
Are not interactive, so there is no option to change the timeframe.
Don't show a navigation bar.
Have a different dashboard URL to the normal dashboard URL.
Give users an option to login if they click to drilldown on the shared dashboard.
Only standard dashboards can be shared, not other pages such as the Monitoring or Map pages.
Organization administrators can control the overall sharing options, with the default option being Anyone with the link can view. Workspace administrators can switch sharing on or off for a workspace, and dashboard editors can then share individual dashboards. These settings are described below.
More about Sharing
Next Steps
Looking to carry out more advanced manipulation of your data? Take a look at SQL Analytics (Beta) to query before you visualize.
Add more data sources? Why stop at one? See Data Sources
Check out our Blog for how to get the most out of SquaredUp
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