About views

StackState SaaS

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 for the filtered topology.
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 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 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.

View summary

When you first open a view, the View summary will be visible in the right panel. This shows the following information:

View properties - the view health state, query, last updated timestamp and a summary of the number of components in the view.
Event handlers - lists all event handlers configured for the view.
Problems - any problems identified 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 an 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 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

StackState Self-Hosted

Extra information for the StackState Self-Hosted product:

Through a combination of configuration of permissions and scope, it is possible control access for a specific user. This can be done in the following ways:

Grant the user access to a subset of the topology (a so-called scope) and allow them to create their own views from the topology that is available to them.
Grant the user access to specific, existing views only and deny them permission to create, modify or delete views.

Subview

What is a subview?

A subview is a temporary StackState view that can be used to aid investigation. While views use stored filters to select a specific set of topology, subviews are generated on demand and cannot be saved. Within a subview, you can investigate the element, group or problem across all perspectives and at any point in time.

Whenever a subview is opened in the StackState UI, topology filters are constructed to focus directly on the chosen area of the StackState topology. You can open a subview by:

double-clicking an element in the topology visualizer
clicking INVESTIGATE IN SUBVIEW on a topology element or problem
selecting VIEW ALL under Events in a right panel details tab - Component details or Relation details

There are two types of subview:

Problem subviews zoom in on the time window and components related to the root cause and contributing causes of a problem identified in the StackState topology.
Selection subviews zoom in on a specific component, relation or group.

Working with subviews

You can open a subview in any of the following ways:

Select a component, relation, group or problem in the StackState UI and then click INVESTIGATE IN SUBVIEW in the right panel details tab. The view filters will be updated to focus on the selected element, group or problem, and the View summary tab in the right panel will be replaced by a Subview summary tab.
Double-click on a component, relation or group in the topology visualizer.
Use the Actions list in the component context menu or right panel details tab to open a selection subview for a component.

Subviews can be shared with other StackState users as a link, this will include any modifications that you have made to the subview. It is not possible to save a subview.

To exit a subview and return to the previous view or explore mode, click the view name in the top bar of the StackState UI.