💬

Observability beta features

Parts of this guide refer to experimental features for observability. To get access to new observability features, reach out to our customer success team via the Intercom messenger in the bottom-right corner of this page, or at [email protected].

This guide will teach you how to create an observability view and populate it with data modules.

📘

Telemetry vs. realtime data

This guide refers to observability for telemetry data, which is ingested by the Formant agent to the cloud.

For information on realtime peer-to-peer data connections with minimal latency between your device and the front end, see Telemetry vs. realtime data streams.

Prerequisite: Add data streams

Before you can visualize data streams in an observability view, you must first add them to Formant. To create telemetry streams, see Ingesting telemetry data. To create realtime streams, see Teleoperation.

When your device is provisioned, the Formant agent will automatically create and ingest default streams, such as host CPU and memory usage.

Step 1: Create a view

From a device

📘

Follow these steps to use observability beta features.

1. In Formant, in the upper-left corner, open the menu and navigate to the device for which you want to create a new view.
2. In the header, click the plus (+) icon to open the Create A View menu.

3. (v2 beta only): Select whether the timeline is visible or hidden for this view.

From settings

1. In Formant, in the upper-left corner, open the menu and click Settings.
2. Go to Views and click Add View.
3. Give your view a name and click Continue.
4. Select which devices can use this view. You'll do this by choosing a tag which relates the view and the device. Once you've selected your devices, click Next.

📘

For more information on tags, or if you haven't yet configured your device(s) with tags, see Configure access levels.

5. Select which data streams you want to monitor in this view.

Step 2: Customize your view with modules

Once you've created your view, your next step is to populate it with modules to represent the data streams you care about.

Observability v1

To modify a view, navigate to that view and click the pencil icon in the upper-right corner. This will open the sidebar where you can rename the view.

You can add a new module by clicking View Settings >> Edit Layout >> Add Module.

You can also rearrange the layout of the modules in your view.

When you're finished modifying your view, click Save.

Observability v2 beta

1. Click the Add (+) Module button.
2. Select a data source for your module. Data sources are sorted by data type, then alphabetically by stream name.

You can add multiple data series to an Observability v2 module. Once you've selected a data series for your module, under Data sources, click Add to add a second data series.

You can customize the label on your module and each individual stream:

Click the arrow next to the individual stream to customize the stream label:

Once you've added a custom stream label, click the back arrow to save your changes.

Step 3: View your data

Once you've configured your view, you can use the timeline controls to navigate your data set.

Observability v2 beta features

Numeric streams

You can use the scroll wheel to zoom in or out on the timeline, which will also zoom the data set shown in each module. You can also highlight a desired section of your data set and snap the timeline to that range:

Bitset stream

You can display a bitset stream as a table of boolean values:

Image stream

You can add many image streams to a single module:

JSON stream

You can display JSON streams as a table:

Configuring access levels

A view with no tags is visible by all entities in your Formant organization. To configure access levels:

1. In the upper left corner, open the menu and navigate to Settings >> Views. Click on the view you just created.
2. Click the Edit Tags tab. This set of tags controls user access. All users who share a tag with a view will have access to it.
3. Click the Edit Groups tab. All groups which share a tag with a view will be able to use that view to display group data.
4. Click the Choose Devices tab. All devices which share a tag with a view will be able to use that view in device observability.
5. Click the Choose Streams tab. All streams which share a tag with a view will be selectable from that view.

📘

For more information on access levels and tags, see Configure access levels with tags.

See also

• Ingesting telemetry data
• Telemetry vs. realtime data streams
• Advanced modules

👋

If you notice an issue with this page or need help, please reach out to us! Use the 'Did this page help you?' buttons below, or get in contact with our Customer Success team via the Intercom messenger in the bottom-right corner of this page, or at [email protected].