Views
Bookmark and monitor parts of your IT landscape with views
This page describes StackState version 4.2.
The StackState 4.2 version range is End of Life (EOL) and no longer supported. We encourage customers still running the 4.2 version range to upgrade to a more recent release.
The full topology available in StackState is likely much larger than you need to be concerned with at any given point in time. StackState allows you to create a filter to select a specific set of components from your topology and save it as a view. Each stored view includes:
The topology filter used to add elements (components and relations) to the view.
Topology visualization settings.
Configuration to calculate the view health state.
Generally speaking, views serve two major purposes:
Views are a type of bookmark. They help you to find your way back to a part of your topology that is of particular interest to you or your team. They may also serve as a starting point for defining new views.
Views can be used for Event notifications and automation. Whenever a change within the view requires your attention, an event handler can send out a notification, create an incident in an ITSM system or trigger automation.
Access a view
Not all views are manually created. Many StackPacks generate views after installation. It is recommended to use these views only as starting points for creating your own views.
Views marked with a star will be included directly in the main menu for easy access. Starred views are a personal preference that is stored in your account.
To access a list of all views, click Views from the main menu.
The View Details panel
To reopen the view details panel at any time, simply click on the white background in the topology visualization.
Whenever you first open a view you see a view details panel on the right side of the screen. This panel shows the following information.
View properties -- shows the view query and last updated timestamp.
Components -- shows a summary of the number of components in the view.
Problem Clusters -- shows the problem clusters for any problems in the view.
Events -- shows the 5 most recent events that occurred for components in the view. Click View all to show the Events Perspective.
View health state
A view is also a tool to make a clear selection of components for which you want to get an event notification for. Typically these are services which provide business value to a team's (internal) customers. StackState can define a single health state for any given set of components stored as a view. The calculation for the state for these components might be a simple count, but it could also be something more complex, for example:
If service A and service B are working find, then the view health state should be
CLEARIf service A has a problem, set the view health state to
DEVIATINGIf service B is is not in a
CLEARstate, set the view health state toCRITICAL.
A view can be in the following health states:
Green -
CLEAR- There is nothing to worry about.Orange -
DEVIATING- Something may require your attention.Red -
CRITICAL- Attention is needed right now, because something is broken.Gray -
UNKNOWN- The view does not have a view health state.
To enable view health state put the View Health State Enabled to on when creating or editing the view. Read more about how to configure the view health state.
Create a view
By default all views are visible to everybody. You can star a view to add it to your personal main menu for easy access. For securing/hiding views please refer to the RBAC documentation.
To create a new view, navigate to Explore Mode via the hamburger menu or use another view as a starting point. Whenever you change any of the topology filtering settings a Save View button will appear at the top of the screen. Click this button to save your current selection to a view. To create a new view from the current view use the dropdown menu next to the button and select Save View As.
In the dialog the following options appear:
| Field Name | Description |
|---|---|
View name | The name of your view. |
View health state enabled | Whether your view has a health state. If you disable this option your view's health state, depicted by the colored circle next to the view, will always color gray. The main reason for disabling is the fact that StackState's backend needs to spend resources on calculating the view health state each time the view changes. |
Configuration function | When view health state is enabled you can choose a view state configuration function that is used to calculate the view health state whenever there are changes in the view. The default choice is minimum health states |
Arguments | Arguments are dependent on the chosen function. See "Function: minimum health states" below. |
Identifier | (Optional) this field can be used to give an unique identifier to the view. This makes the view uniquely referenceable from exported configuration, like the exported configuration in a StackPack. |
Event notifications for view health state changes
A ViewStateChangedEvent event is triggered whenever a view changes its health state. This event can be used in event handlers to, for example, to send an e-mail or Slack message or to trigger automation. Please refer to event notifications to understand how to set that up.
Deleting or editing views
It is not recommended to delete or edit views created by StackPacks. When doing so, you will get a warning that the view is locked. If you proceed anyway the issue needs to be resolved when upgrading the StackPack that created the view.
To delete or edit a view:
Go to the list of views by clicking Views in the .
In the view details panel on the right side of the screen, select the context menu next (accessed through the triple dots) to the right of the view name.
Select the Delete or Edit menu item.
Securing views (RBAC)
Through a combination of configuration of permissions and scope, it is possible to give specific users:
access to a specific subset of the topology (a so-called scope) and allowing them to create their own views
access to specific views and disallowing them to create, modify or delete views
Please refer to the RBAC documentation.
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