Filters and time range

Real-Time Metrics shows each dashboard in Azion Console under one set of controls: a category dropdown, product tabs, a filter row, and a dashboard selector. The time range and the filters you set in the filter row apply to every chart of the dashboard you are viewing.

Screen layout

The Real-Time Metrics screen groups its dashboards by category and product. Under Build, the product tabs are Applications, Tiered Cache, Functions, and Image Processor. Under Secure, they are WAF, Edge DNS, Bot Manager, and Threats Breakdown. Under Observe, the one tab is Data Stream.

The controls sit in this order, from the top of the screen:

With no product or dashboard in the URL, the screen opens on Build › Applications › Data Transferred. While the charts load, four placeholder cards hold their place. Each dashboard and its charts are described in Build dashboards, Secure dashboards, and Observe dashboards.

Time range

The time range sets the period that every chart of the dashboard fetches. It is one date-range picker in the filter row, and the screen opens on Last 5 minutes. The picker has four tabs:

The unit dropdown of the Quick tab offers Minutes, Hours, Days, Weeks, Months, and Years.

Commonly used presets

The Quick tab lists 12 presets in two columns, in this order:

Range bounds and display

The calendar accepts dates from 730 days back up to the current moment, and a date outside that window is clamped to its nearest bound. A chosen boundary displays in the form Mon D, YYYY @ HH:MM:SS.

After you change the range, the Refresh button reads Update. Select Update to load every chart for the new range.

The length of the range also sets the resolution of the time charts: one point per minute, per hour, or per day. For the thresholds, refer to How Real-Time Metrics works. For how far back data goes, refer to Real-Time Metrics limits.

Auto-refresh

Real-Time Metrics reloads the charts on a timer only when you turn auto-refresh on. The control sits in the Quick tab of the time-range picker:

Auto-refresh works with any range, and no preset turns it on by itself. To keep the end of the range at the moment of each refresh, use Set Now in the Now tab.

Beside the picker, the Refresh button reloads every chart on demand. After you change the range or edit the query input without applying it, the button reads Update and applies the change. Refresh and Update are both disabled while the query input shows a validation error or the start of the range is after its end.

Timezone

Real-Time Metrics reads and plots data in the timezone of your account. The charts convert the range with the account’s UTC offset and shift each point on the x-axis by the same offset.

The footer of the time-range picker shows UTC: followed by the account timezone, and a UTC Offset: selector. The selector’s first option, such as Account (UTC-03:00), is the account offset and the default. The other options read (UTC +hh:mm) followed by a timezone name, sorted by offset, and the Search timezone box narrows the list.

On a time chart, x-axis ticks use the format %b-%d %H:%M, such as Oct-02 11:15. Tooltip titles use the en-US date and time format.

Filters

With no filter, the charts of a dashboard show data for the whole account. A filter keeps only the data whose field matches a value, on every chart of the dashboard. To add, edit, or remove a filter step by step, refer to Filter a Real-Time Metrics dashboard.

Filter popover

The filter button is an icon with the tooltip Add filter. It opens the Filter popover, or a bottom sheet on a screen 768 px wide or narrower. The popover states: Each combination of operator can only be used once.

While the field list loads, the filter row shows a placeholder.

Fields

The field list is not fixed. When a dashboard opens, Real-Time Metrics reads the filter inputs of the dashboard’s dataset from the GraphQL schema and lists them as fields. A field label is the input name split into words, without its operator suffix, with each word capitalized: upstreamCacheStatusEq becomes Upstream Cache Status. Inputs whose schema description marks them as deprecated do not appear, and neither do a fixed set of excluded inputs such as clientId.

For every field of a dataset and its type, refer to Real-Time Metrics GraphQL fields.

Some fields carry a list of values instead of free input:

The field dropdown lists a few fields first, by dashboard. The remaining fields follow in alphabetical order:

The Bot Manager dashboards, Request Breakdown, and Threats Breakdown list every field in alphabetical order.

Operators

The operators a field offers depend on its type. Each operator has a label in the Operator dropdown, a symbol on the applied-filter chip, a form in the query input, and the GraphQL operator the chart’s query sends:

Contains and Not Contains wrap the value as %value% before the query runs. For what each GraphQL operator matches, refer to GraphQL queries.

Value types

The value input follows the type of the field:

A range needs a begin lower than its end. Otherwise, the popover shows Begin must be different from end, Begin must be less than end, End must be different from begin, or End must be more than begin. When a list of values cannot load, a Loading failed message appears.

Applied filters

Each applied filter shows as a chip under the filter row, in the form <Field> <operator>: <value>, with the operator label in lowercase. A range shows as (begin,end) and an In list as (a, b). Selecting a chip opens the Filter popover with that filter’s values, and a lock icon replaces the field arrow, because the field cannot change. The remove icon on a chip deletes that filter.

Filter combination

As the Filter popover states, each combination of operator can be used only once. The query input joins conditions with and, so the charts show only the data that matches every applied filter. To match any of several values of one field, use In.

Filters on a dashboard switch

Switching to a dashboard that reads a different dataset clears the filters and keeps the time range. Filters whose field does not exist in the new dataset are dropped from the query. The dataset of each dashboard is listed in Build dashboards.

Query input

The query input in the filter row filters the dashboard with a typed expression in Azion Query Language. Its placeholder reads Filter using Azion Query Language syntax.... An expression follows these rules:

• A condition is a field, an operator, and a value, separated by spaces: status = 200.
• A field name of more than one word goes in double quotes: "Upstream Status".
• The in operator takes its values in parentheses, with no comma after the last one: domain in (domain1, domain2).
• The between operator takes exactly two different values in parentheses: status between (200, 300).
• Conditions join with and.

While you type, the input suggests fields, then operators, then values. Ctrl + Space, or Cmd + Space, opens the suggestions; Enter applies the expression; and Esc closes the suggestions.

Validation messages

The query input shows these messages as rendered, and Refresh stays disabled until the expression is valid:

Shareable URL

The path of the Real-Time Metrics URL names the product tab and the dashboard, such as https://console.azion.com/real-time-metrics/edge-applications/data-transferred for Applications › Data Transferred. Another user of the account who opens that URL lands on the same dashboard.

A URL can also carry a filters query parameter. Its value is a base64-encoded JSON object, and Real-Time Metrics reads its external.tsRange key, with begin and end, as the time range to open on.

Chart anatomy

Each chart is a card. From the top, it carries the owner icon, the chart title, and the menu button; then the description; then the aggregation tag and, where it applies, the variation tag; then the chart itself.

Legend

Each legend entry shows the series name and its total over the range. On a chart whose aggregation tag reads Average, the total is divided by the number of points. Select a legend entry to hide or show its series.

A chart plots at most 16 series; further series are not added. The legend sits at the bottom of the chart by default. It moves to the right when the chart is wider than two grid columns and has more than five series, and it stays at the bottom in a window narrower than 1024 px. Ordered bar charts show no legend.

Tooltip and zoom

The tooltip shows only in a window wider than 540 px. Charts whose x-axis is time can be zoomed: scroll up over the chart to zoom in, and scroll down to zoom out. Inside the range, a time bucket with no data plots as zero.

List charts

A list chart is a table. Its column headers come from the field names: sum reads Total, geolocCountryName reads Country, geolocAsn reads ASN, geolocRegionName reads Region, and other names are title-cased. The table scrolls inside a 375 px height, and an empty table reads No registers found.

Chart states

A chart card shows one of these states in place of the chart:

Chart menu

The More options button of a chart card opens the chart menu. Each item shows only when it applies to the chart:

Copy query

Copy query puts a text block on the clipboard: the line # QUERY, the chart’s GraphQL query, then the line # VARIABLES and the variables as a JSON object. Both marker lines are GraphQL comments. The query reads its filter values from the variables, so it does not run on its own. To run it, paste the query into the GraphiQL Playground and move the JSON after # VARIABLES into the variables pane. For more information, refer to GraphiQL Playground.

Export CSV

Export CSV writes the file with ; as the separator and dates in the en-US form, month first with a 12-hour clock. The file holds the points as the chart plots them for the selected range and filters.

Mean lines

A mean line is the sum of the chart’s points divided by the number of points, for the selected range. Its legend entry reads Mean Line - <value>. A mean line per series computes the same mean for each series, and its entry reads Mean Line - <Series> - <value>.

Variation tag

The variation tag compares the selected range with the window of the same length immediately before it. It shows on time charts whose result is a single series and on big-number cards. Charts by category, such as pie charts, ordered bar charts, and lists, never show it.

The value is (current − previous) / previous × 100, shown as a percentage with two decimals. For example, with Last 1 hour selected at 10:00, the tag compares 09:00 to 10:00 with 08:00 to 09:00.

When the change is between –0.01% and +0.01%, the tag reads Can’t compare, in a warning color with a triangle icon. It also reads Can’t compare when either value is missing or the previous value is 0.

Otherwise, the color says whether the change is good for that chart:

On a chart where an increase is good, the tag adds an up-right arrow for an increase and a down-left arrow for a decrease. Blue tags appear only on big-number cards.

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