Did something change with Dashboards and Management Zones?

[larry_roberts]

I noticed a change in our Dynatrace environment a few weeks ago and at first thought it was just a cache thing, but it seems like it truly has changed. It used to be when I was in edit in a dashboard, whatever Management Zone and timeframe I had set while in edit would be saved as the default for that password. At least that is how it seemed to be anyway. Each time I would login and select different dashboards, the Management Zone and timeframe would change.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed this no longer seems to be the case. Did something change?

[uhh]

You are right. Something has changed and it is annoying.
I've tried to embrace this change and find something positive to this - but there nothing positive to say.
For the dashboards provided to many of our users we now need to communicate that they have to change filter and time frame all the time.

Also my default time frame seems to be 72 hours - that is also quite annoying.

The workaround is to use links to dashboards. The url contains time frame and management zones.

Hope for a change back to the better soon.

[larry_roberts]

Ok so I am not going crazy then, lol. And you are correct, it's VERY annoying and needs to go back to what it was. Links are ok, but our dashboards have been created with the idea that the Management Zone and timespan are saved by default when in edit mode. This just makes users need to click on more things and not to mention makes it confusing for some. This must have been one of those silent changes because I do not recall seeing anything on it. I guess it's time to open an RFE to see if we can get it pushed back.

[uhh]

Not more crazy than me Larry 🙂
If you open an RFE - I'll for sure back it - please update this thread with a link.

[larry_roberts]

RFE created: https://community.dynatrace.com/spaces/483/dynatrace-product-ideas/idea/222161/please-restore-option...

[Julius_Loman]

@Larry R. I see there is metadata for a dashboard that contains the managed zone and the default time filter. Have you tried to set this metadata using API?

[larry_roberts]

No and in the use case that would not matter. I nor anyone else should now need to use the API to set the default Management Zone and timespan on a dashboard when the easy functionality of doing this while editing a dashboard "was" there.

[Julius_Loman]

At least this works for me. I can set the Management Zone for a dashboard using the configuration REST API.

By default I have NULL as the management zone. If I set it to a proper value (must be a JSON object), it applies as the setting for the dashboard.

Download the dashboard definition (jq is just for formatting the ouput here):

curl -XGET -H "Authorization: api-token $APITOKEN" "$TENANT/api/config/v1/dashboards/$DASHBOARD" | jq '.' >/tmp/dashboard.json

set the management zone to a object, for example I now have:

"dashboardFilter": {
"timeframe": "",
"managementZone": {
"id": "6134715945330092281",
"name": "CSM testing"
}
}

And put the dashboard definition back using REST API ( I recommend to use the validator first 😞

curl -XPUT --data @/tmp/dashboard.json -H 'Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8' -H "Authorization: api-token $APITOKEN" "$TENANT/api/config/v1/dashboards/$DASHBOARD"

[larry_roberts]

Thanks Julius. I appreciate the effort, but this is functionality that was already in Dynatrace and has been removed recently and in my opinion is not a helpful change and if anything is impactful. Our users design their dashboards around the Management Zones and timespans and want what they had which was the ability to set the defaults for this when you open said dashboard. They should not need to go through an API after editing or creating a dashboard just to set the defaults for Management Zone and timespan. It makes no sense to me or our users as to why this would be removes from the GUI.

If you are creating a dashboard through the API, then yes I can see doing it that way. But once a dashboard is either edited or made by hand inside the Dynatrace GUI, there is no reason we should not be able to set these defaults anymore.

[Julius_Loman]

Agreed. This was just an idea, since I have been playing with the dashboard API recently.
There definitely should be an option to set it directly in the UI. Maybe there is a featureflag already that will enable those settings in the UI - @Roman W. ?

[RomanW · Accepted solution]

You're correct, we did change the behavior of persisted management zones and time frames being automatically applied upon opening a dashboard. We do however still save the settings when editing a dashboard.

The reason for this was some negative sentiment on automatically changing global time frame and management zone settings without letting the user know about it.

It seems to me we need to take a third shot at this, since I do see where you're all coming from. Let me get back to you as soon as we have re-evaluated all options.

[larry_roberts]

Thank you!!! Yes, we really need this ability back.

[uhh]

Roman, that's most appreciated.

But let me understand what you write correctly.

"We do however still save the settings when editing a dashboard. "
Ehm, not really. Is that not the main problem? Or what settings are we talking about if not the time frame and the management zones?

And as a note, the problem is, that with several management zones and a huge amount of hosts/applications/services most of the users of dashboards might not know the entire infrastructure and which management zone to use. Most have no interest in switching between zones at dashboard level - this is for the overview.

The possibility to have tiles configured with management zones would be nice - then the dashboard could be very specialized without the users need to set the filter themselves.

[RomanW]

Selected management zone and time frame is precisely the "settings" I was referring to. Both are still stored while not always applied when opening a dashboard. The reason for that was - as stated - that users were confused because they weren't aware that we changed those two filter settings automatically.Like I said, we'll have to find a better solution for this.