About views

StackState Self-hosted v4.5.x

This page describes StackState v4.5.x. The StackState 4.5 version range is End of Life (EOL) and no longer supported. We encourage customers still running the 4.5 version range to upgrade to a more recent release.

Go to the documentation for the latest StackState release.

Overview

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:

Filters:
- Topology filters - add elements (components and relations) to the view.
- Events and Traces filters - refine the traces and events displayed.
Visualization settings – customize how elements (components and relations) are displayed within the view.
View health state configuration – reports the health state of the view.
Event handlers - respond to events generated in the view and send event notifications.

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.

Not all views are manually created. Many StackPacks generate views after installation.

Access a view

Every view that a user has permission to access is listed on the all views screen in the StackState UI. To open this screen, click all views from the main menu or Views in the top bar breadcrumbs. Views marked with a star are listed directly in the main menu for easy access.

Click on a view name to open the topology perspective for that view.

Starred views

You can add a star to a view you use frequently to add it to your personal main menu for easy access. View star settings are a personal preference stored in your user account. You can recognize starred views by the yellow star icon next to their name.

To add or remove a star:

For the current view: Click the star icon to the right of its name in the top bar to add or remove the star.
For any view: Click all views from the main menu to open a list of all views. Click the star icon to the right of a view name to add or remove its star.

The View Details pane

When you first open a view, the View Details pane will be visible on the right-hand side of the StackState UI. This shows the following information:

View properties - The view health state, query and last updated timestamp.
Components - A summary of the number of components in the view.
Problems - Any problems in the view.
Events - The most recent events that occurred for components in the view. Click View all to open the Events Perspective.

View health state

A view is also a tool to define a clear selection of components for which you want to receive a event notifications. Typically, these are services that 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 view health state. The view health state reflects the health state of components and relations within the view. It can be calculated based on a simple count, but it could also be something more complex, for example:

Report view health state CLEAR if service A and service B are working fine.
Report view health DEVIATING if service A has a problem.
Report view health CRITICAL if service B does not have health state CLEAR.

Enable or disable view health state

To enable view health state, set View Health State Enabled to on when you create or edit a view.
To disable a view health state, edit the view and set View Health State Enabled to off.

➡️ Learn more about how to configure the view health state.

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. See how to send event notifications.

Secure views with RBAC

Through a combination of configuration of permissions and scope, it is possible control access for specific users:

Give access to a specific subset of the topology (a so-called scope) and allow them to create their own views.
Give access to specific views and disallow them to create, modify or delete views.