Getting Started

SquaredUp is a unified visibility layer that provides an end-to-end view of all your business-critical applications. Connect to 100+ data sources through a versatile interface offering flexible dashboarding, effortless monitoring, powerful analytics, and universal search across your tech stack. Powered by our data mesh architecture, SquaredUp lets you correlate your data across teams and tools – all without the costs and complexity of a data warehouse.

Are you ready to visualize your data? This article will walk you through the basics and get you set up with the building blocks for full visibility across your tools and services.

If you have yet to sign up, create a free account here.

1. Connect to your data

First, let's connect SquaredUp to a data source that you use regularly, so you can visualize data that is useful to your organization.

Plugins connect SquaredUp to your data sources. There are lots of plugins available with new ones being made available regularly, see SquaredUp: Plugins. Plugins can be used to add new data sources from Data sources on the left-hand menu, which gives you access to their corresponding Data Streams and Objects when creating Dashboards. Most data sources need credentials like an API key, access token or other authentication methods.

Data sources can be added inside a workspace:

How to add the data source
To add a data source click on the + next to Data Sources on the left-hand menu in SquaredUp. Search for the data source and click on it to open the Configure data source page.
Alternatively you can filter data sources by selecting a category from the list on the left, for example: CI/CD Tools.
Display Name:
Enter a name for your data source. This helps you to identify this data source in the list of your data sources.
Enter the credentials for your data source. Each data source may have slightly different fields to fill out. See individual data source documentation for more information:
List of documentation for data source plugins available
Install Sample Dashboards:
Select whether you would like to install sample dashboards with the data source. By default, this is set to on.

This setting will only appear as an option for data sources with sample dashboards.

Select whether you would like to restrict access to the data source.

The term data source here really means data source instance. For example, a user may configure two instances of the AWS data source, one for their development environment and one for production. In that case, each data source instance has its own access control settings.

By default, Restrict access to this data source is set to off. The data source can be viewed, edited and administered by anyone. If you would like to control who has access to this data source, switch Restrict access to this data source to on.

Use the Restrict access to this data source dropdown to control who has access to the workspace:

By default, the user setting the permissions for the data source will be given Full Control and the Everyone group will be given Link to workspace permissions.
Tailor access to the data source, as required, by selecting individual users or user groups from the dropdown and giving them Link to workspace or Full Control permissions.
If the user is not available from the dropdown, you are able to invite them to the data source by typing in their email address and then clicking Add. The new user will then receive an email inviting them to create an account on SquaredUp. Once the account has been created, they will gain access to the organization.
At least one user or group must be given Full Control.
Admin users can edit the configuration, modify the Access Control List (ACL) and delete the data source, regardless of the ACL chosen.

Access Level:

Link to workspace	User can link the data source to any workspace they have at least Editor permissions for. Data from the data source can then be viewed by anyone with any access to the workspace. User can share the data source data with anyone they want. User cannot configure the data source in any way, or delete it.
Full Control	User can change the data source configuration, ACL, and delete the data source.

See Access control for more information.

Click Add.
You can also add a data source from Settings > Data Sources > Add data source, but sample dashboards are not added when using this method.

The data source will be added to the current workspace. If sample dashboards exist for a data source, they will automatically be added to that workspace.

If this is the first time you are adding the data source to a workspace, a window displays showing the progress of the data source indexing. You can click Run in background to close this window, however you'll still have to wait for the indexing to complete before the data source becomes usable.

Once the process completes, do the following depending on whether the data source was added successfully:

If the data source was successfully added and you also installed sample dashboards, click Explore Dashboards to be taken to the first sample dashboard in the list or click Close to go to the connected data source.
If the data source was successfully added without installing sample dashboards, click Add Dashboard to create a new dashboard or click Close to go to the connected data source.
If the data source was not successfully installed, click Close to go to the failed data source.

Use workspaces to model your teams and entities, and the dependencies between them, to enable greater collaboration and knowledge sharing. A workspace may represent an application, a service, a component, a team… it's completely up to you. Each workspace has its own dashboards, data sources, monitors and scopes.

Once you have added a data source, it will be listed under Data Sources on the left-hand menu, and the overview page will appear. Each data source has a data source overview page, which is a management page showing all the indexed objects.

A data source overview page will show:

Name of the data source
Index status of the data source:
- Connected – everything is working correctly.
- Failed – the data source configuration failed. Click More Info to find out more about the issue with the data source.
When the last object finished indexing – objects are automatically indexed every 12 hours. Admin users can use the Refresh button next to the status to manually index objects.
Manage – admin users can use this to manage the data source configuration.
Editing a data source configuration will change it for all workspaces that use it in SquaredUp.
Remove – admin users can use this to remove the data source from the workspace.
Any dashboard tiles using this data source in the workspace will no longer work.
Overview of the objects for the data source

More about Data Sources

2. Visualize your data

Many data sources come with dashboards, so you may be looking at your data in powerful graphs on a dashboard right now. You can customize these dashboards by editing tiles or adding new ones. Or you can create a new dashboard and add tiles to visualize your data.

This one minute video shows you how to add a data source and a data tile with a line graph visualization to a new dashboard using the dashboard designer:

On the dashboard, hover where you'd like to place a visualization, and click the + that appears. Click on the Data icon, the tile editor will appear.

The tile editor allows you to configure the data from your data sources and display it in any way you wish. Steps may vary depending on which data stream you select. You can add a title and description for your tile at the top of tile editor.

Data stream

The first step is to select which data stream you want to use. You will see a list of all available data streams for your indexed data sources. If you need to index a new data source, select the + icon next to Data Source filter.

You can search for data streams at the top, or filter data streams by Data Source, Data Stream Type or Object Scope.

For each data stream in the list of available data streams you will see:

Name of the data stream
Data source
Data stream type (Scoped or Global)
Object scope
Whether the data stream is configurable – configurable data streams are represented by a cog icon. User-configured data streams are represented by a user icon.

Select the data stream that you want to use and then click Next.

Help with configuring data streams specific to your data source can be found in each specific data source article:

List of documentation for data source plugins available

Objects

The Objects tab of the tile editor allows you to scope the data stream to show particular objects. This will only need to be completed if you selected a Scoped data stream in the previous step. A selection of objects is also called a scope. See Objects for more information about SquaredUp objects.

Your scope can be saved for use in other tiles in this workspace using the Save as button. Saved scopes will appear, and can be edited, from Scopes on the left-hand menu.

You will see a list of all available objects for the selected data stream.

You can search for objects at the top, or filter objects by Data Source or Type. To narrow results down further, additional filters can be used by selecting Add Filter.

For each object in the list of available objects you will see:

Name of the object
Data source
Type

There are two types of scopes:

Fixed scopes contain specific objects that you have manually picked. The objects in a fixed scope never change, except when you manually edit the scope.
Dynamic scopes contain objects that match criteria defined by you. When objects that match those criteria get added to or removed from SquaredUp the number of objects in the scope can change. Tiles that use a dynamic scope will check which objects match the criteria every time they refresh.

When you are editing a tile, a panel shows the objects selected (as they may be spread across several pages of selectable objects). If you close this panel you can reopen it by clicking the x objects selected message by the Next button.

Once you have finished selecting objects, click Next.

Query

The Query tab of the tile editor will only need to be completed if you selected a Configurable data stream. Complete each field to configure the data stream how you wish.

Query fields will vary depending on which configurable data stream you selected.

Click Next.

Timeframe

Select a timeframe for the tile. By default, the timeframe is set to the dashboard timeframe.

Shaping

Data can be filtered according to whether data in a column meets or does not meet specified text or numerical value conditions. Depending on the data you are filtering, available options include: Equals, Not equals, Contains, Doesn't contain, Less than, Greater than, Before now, After now, Is empty, Is not empty.

Dates can be filtered by Before now or After now (e.g. to show overdue orders). Text matching is case sensitive.

You are able to add multiple filter conditions. Available options are:

AND – all conditions must be satisfied (e.g. Status-Equals-ClosedAND Type-Equals-Question).
OR – any condition can be satisfied (e.g. Status-Equals-PendingOR Status-Equals-Closed).

You can group and aggregate data by column.

For example, for AWS cost data you might Group bylabel, choose Aggregation typeTotal with Aggregation columnAmount, to show a table or bar chart of cost per label.

Which columns are available depends on the data stream you chose.

Configuring grouping will enable different visualizations to be displayed, such as bar chart and donut. For example, grouping tickets by channel will allow you to show a donut of how many tickets were logged by email vs web form.

Bucket by

If you group by a time column, and further grouping is possible, then the Bucket by dropdown will appear, which allows you to control how the time data is grouped, for example by hour, day, month etc.

Aggregation type and column

Using this dropdown you can choose how to summarize your data, for example as a count, average or total.

For example, for a Bar Chart of ticket data you might Group by Date created, choose Bucket byDay with Aggregation type Count, to show a line graph of tickets per day. Or for a Bar Chart of Azure Resource Group cost you might Group byTimestamp, Bucket byDay, Aggregation typeTotal and Aggregate columnCost.

Data can be sorted by column in ascending or descending order. This sets the default sort order, but users can click on a column heading to sort data in a table on the fly.

Ticking Top and typing a number will show the top n rows of data.

Columns

The Columns tab of the editor allows you to format the columns of the Data table you retrieve from data streams.

Typically, SquaredUp automatically defines the metadata retrieved from-built-in data streams so that the received data is assigned the correct data type, enabling visualizations to be configured out of the box.

However, in some circumstances (such as when retrieving data using the Web API plugin, scripting, or using custom query data streams such as Splunk Enterprise plugin) you may want to override the data type or the data type may not be quite correct - in which case this tab allows you to manually select a different data type from the Type dropdown.

Additionally, this tab also allows you to rename and copy the data columns you receive.

The table contains each data column received by the data stream, and is used to format the following:

Name:

The column name. This can be overwritten by clicking the cell and entering a new value.

Type:

The data type of a column. This can be overwritten by selecting a new value from the dropdown. Some data types have advanced settings that can be configured in the Options section, displayed by clicking the expand button next to the Name, see Options.

Value:

Displays the original value of the column.

Formatted:

Displays the formatted value of the column.

Add a copy of this column (button):

Click to duplicate the column. The copied field displays Copy of [field name] above its Name.

Remove this column (button):

Click to delete a copied column.

Some data types have additional formatting that can be applied to a column in the Options section, displayed by clicking the expand button next to the corresponding Name.

The following options are available:

Format:

Enter a custom date format.

Currency:

Select the currency to display the value in. This does not convert the currency value.

Decimal Places:

Formats the number of decimal places for a supported data type. Enter a value between 0 and 20.

Link Text:

Specify the text of the URL links in the column.

Format as duration:

Toggle between displaying the time value in minutes and seconds or seconds.

Map Values to States:

Define the values that trigger states. Select a value for each of the corresponding dropdowns:

Success
Warning
Error
Unknown

Visualization

Select the visualization for your tile. Which visualizations are offered to you depends on the data available, for example Line Graph will only be offered if there is time series data.

For detailed information on configuring each visualization type, see Visualization settings.

These steps describe the simple tile editor. Advanced users might like to try the SQL Analytics editor see SQL Analytics (Beta).

You can also configure Monitoring and KPIs in the tile configuration:

For more about how to edit dashboards, or add text and image tiles see Dashboards

3. Add your team

Add your colleagues as users, for a more collaborative approach, and so they can also explore the visualizations available.

Go to Settings > Users.
Click Add user.
Email:
Enter the email address of the user that you want to add.
Add to User group(s):
Select which user group(s) you would like to add the new user to from the dropdown.
New users are automatically included in the Everyone group.
Click Done.

More about Users

4. Add Monitoring and Notifications

This short video (2 mins 40) shows how to enable monitoring for a tile and add a new notification rule:

SquaredUp shows you red, amber or green status indicators so you can instantly see if everything is ok or if something needs your attention. The indicators can be seen in several places, for example as dot icons next to a workspace's name or as a highlight color on dashboards.

More about Monitoring

SquaredUp can alert you when the state of any monitor changes by sending notifications.

Simply add a new notification rule in the Monitors section inside a workspace and configure the trigger and destination. See Setting notification rules for more information. You cannot Edit, Pause and Delete destinations from the Monitors page.

More about Notifications

Take a look at sharing view-only access to your dashboard with users that don't have a SquaredUp user license.

This short video (1 min 41) shows how to easily share dashboards:

Dashboard sharing is only available on the Pro and Enterprise paid plans.

Dashboard sharing allows view-only dashboards to be shared with anyone, as no user license is required to view the shared dashboard. The URL of a shared dashboard can be distributed, for example via email, or can be shown on wall monitors.

Users who can see shared dashboards can see the whole dashboard, which updates as normal, but these users cannot click to interact with the data.

Shared dashboards:

Do not consume a user license.
Refresh as normal, every minute.
Are not interactive, so there is no option to change the timeframe.
Don't show the left-hand menu.
Have a different dashboard URL to the normal dashboard URL.
Give users an option to login if they click to drilldown on the shared dashboard.

Only standard dashboards can be shared, not other pages such as the Monitoring or Map pages.

Organization administrators can control the overall sharing options, with the default option being Anyone with the link can view. Workspace administrators can switch sharing on or off for a workspace, and dashboard editors can then share individual dashboards. These settings are described below.

More about Sharing

Next steps

Looking to carry out more advanced manipulation of your data? Take a look at SQL Analytics (Beta) to query before you visualize.
Add more data sources? Why stop at one? See Data Sources
Choose a display theme - Light or dark? You decide! See Organization home
Check out our Blog for how to get the most out of SquaredUp and watch our Product feature videos.

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