AppDirect FAQs

AppDirect Technical Support Requests - Online Portal orEmail

There are 2 ways of submitting cases to support: by email, or using the online portal.

Email - Sending email to your support alias (i.e. [email protected]) not only creates a support case, it also creates a user in our Ticketing System.

If you are happy managing your cases by email, there is no need to register. Any authorized user in your organisation can email us to open a ticket.

Portal - if you wish to submit/manage cases via the support portal, you must register and/or get a password.

Accessing the AppDirect Technical Support portal

Go to AppDirect Support ( https://support.appdirect.com ) and click sign in.

If you have previously communicated with AppDirect Technical Support by email, you are already provisioned in our ticketing system; request your password by selectingGet a password.

If you have never emailed us, create a user and password using theSign up option

AppDirect Support

Follow the instructions to register and/or obtain your password.

Once complete, return to and sign in.

Navigating in the Portal

After signing in, there are 2 main links at the top of the page:Submit a request and My activities.

Submit a Request opens a new support case for your organisation.

My activities allows you to view & manage your and your organisation's open cases.

Activities view

There are several easy-to-follow tabs to help you manage your tickets:

My requests are tickets owned by you

Organization requests displays cases opened by colleagues in your organisation,

Requests I'm CC'd on are cases opened by others via email or in the portal on which you were CC'd.

Contributions are reserved for comments you have made on articles.

Following are cases which you have selected to follow.

You can filter by Status if you have many cases to make it easier to manage.

If you're frequently organizing important company data using Google spreadsheets, our Google Sheet integration is a great way to dynamically represent this data within AppInsights.

You’ll just need to connect your Google account, select the data format and visualization type you’d like to use, and then select the appropriate spreadsheet cell(s) that you would like represented within AppInsights. Any time you make a change to the underlying data in your Google Sheet, your connected AppInsights widgets will automatically update to reflect this change!

For users that are new to our Google Sheet integration,we recommend you read this tutorial in full.

SINGLE NUMBER

To get started, navigate to the Google Sheet tile within our Services panel ("+ Add Widget" button).

You’ll immediately be presented with a selection of data formats: Single Number, Table, XY Graph, Leaderboard, Line Graph, and Multi-Bar. Once you’ve selected the appropriate data format, you can then choose from a number of visualization options.

For our example, let’s use the basic “Single Number” option and then select the standard number widget to represent our data.

Once you’ve deployed your new number widget to the dashboard, you’ll need to authenticate your Google Sheet account (if you haven’t already). To do so, hit the gear icon at top right of your new widget and select the “Edit Widget Settings” menu. From this menu, hit the blue “Connect” button and a pop-up window will invite you to enter your Google credentials and extend access permissions to AppInsights. You will only need to do this once

Once you’ve connected your account, you’ll notice that the “Data Settings” tab has populated with a new set of options. You can now choose from any of the spreadsheets within your connected Google account. Once you select a spreadsheet, you can then choose an individual sheet (or tab) within that spreadsheet along with the specific cell that you would like represented within AppInsights. (You can also add a prefix or suffix to accompany your data point.)

As we’re using a basic number widget for our example, all we need to do is select a single spreadsheet cell that contains data and your widget will populate. In our example, we'll use the "Cell" dropdown to select the second column, second row of our spreadsheet -- B2.

Google Sheet

AppInsights

You’re done! Whenever the data changes in your selected cell, your widget will update with the new value. This is particularly useful if you’re looking to track the value of a data-point over time. Just select the “Single Number” data format, choose our Line Graph or Sparkline widget, and AppInsights will automatically reflect any changes as your data point updates over time.

Please note: the “Single Number” data format is the only use of our Google Sheet integration that will require you to select a single spreadsheet cell. For the rest of the tutorial, we’ll be providing instructions on widgets that connect to a data set (or range of cells) rather than a single cell value.

TABLE

Our table widget is a great way to represent columns of text and/or data that are stored within your Google Sheet. Start by selecting the “Table” data format and selecting our standard table visualization. If you’ve already connected your Google Sheet account, you’ll be asked to select your spreadsheet, sheet tab, and a range of cells to populate your table. If your spreadsheet contains header data -- i.e. names for each column -- you’ll want to check the “First Row is Header” box so your top row is not treated like standard data.

As our table widget will expect a range of spreadsheet cells, you’ll need to specify thetop left celland thebottom right cellof the data set. This means that you’ll need to organize your spreadsheet data in adjoining columns, otherwise you’ll end up with empty cells within your data set, which AppInsights will be unable to recognize.

For our table example we’ll select from A1 to C19, which will populate our table widget with three columns, each with 18 rows of data (header row not included).

Google Sheet

AppInsights

XY GRAPH

The XY graph empowers users to plot two columns of numerical data along an X and Y axis. (Please note: our XY graph will not recognize dates -- if you’re looking to track a data point over time, please use our Line Graph or Sparklinewidgets).

Similar to the table, our XY graph visualization will require you to select a range of cells. Once again, you’ll want to specify your spreadsheet, sheet tab, and thetop left / bottom right cellof your data range.

When using the XY graph, do not include any column headers used to label your data as these will prevent your data range from being represented properly (i.e. we ignore “Users” and “Pings” pictured below).

Google Sheet

AppInsights

LEADERBOARD

Our Leaderboard data format will allow you to choose from a number of visualizations -- Leaderboard, Pie Chart, Bar Graph -- each of which is intended to rank the comparative values of a data-set. For our example, we’ll be using the standard leaderboard widget which will automatically rank the values of our data set from highest to lowest.

Start by selecting your spreadsheet, sheet tab, and cell range (top left / bottom right). As with the XY graph, do not include any column headers used to label your data as these will prevent your data range from being represented properly.

Google Sheet

AppInsights

LINE GRAPH

Selecting our line graph data format will allow you to populate either our Line Graph or Sparkline widgets with historical data, as opposed to selecting a single spreadsheet cell that is tracked over time. (Please note: the other widgets listed in this category -- i.e. number, horizontal / vertical bar, dial -- will function identically to their “Single Number” counterparts.)

To get started, select the Line Graph or Sparkline widget, then choose your spreadsheet and sheet tab of choice, along with your range of cells. (You may ignore any column headers.)

Please note that for these widget types, the AppInsights app will expect you to pass through a date that corresponds to your data (see below screenshots). With this in mind, you must be sure that your widget settings are consistent with the time range of data that you’ve selected.

In our example, we’ve provided the most recent 12 months of sales data. To properly represent this in our widget, we need to navigate to the “Widget Settings” tab and select “Past Year” as our Time Period.

Google Sheet

AppInsights

MULTI-BAR

Your final data format / visualization option is our multi-bar graph. If you have a more complex data set and need to plot multiple values against the same x-axis categories, this is the visualization option you’re looking for.

For starters, you’ll want to make sure your data set is arranged to cooperate with our multi-bar visualization. Start by arranging all of your x-axis value categories on the left side of your data range (you can think of these as unique titles for each of your rows). Next, arrange your data sets as unique columns that correspond to each of your x-axis categories.

In our example, we’re tracking the number of unique drip emails that were sent over the course of three months.

You’ll notice above that there is a placeholder cell that lists “Multi-bar” in the top left corner of our spreadsheet. Please note: in order for your multi-bar visualization to function properly, this cell needs to be selected as the top left bound of your data set -- it cannot be empty.

Once you’ve properly formatted your data set, follow the standard steps of selecting your spreadsheet, your sheet tab, and the range of cells you would like represented. (Please view the spreadsheet sample below for clarity on the appropriate top left / bottom right selections).

Google Sheet

AppInsights

***A final note on Google Sheet data updates: while AppInsights will automatically reflect any change to an individual data cell or range of cells that has been connected to your widgets, the app will not detect any NEW data that has been added to your sheet. If, for example, you add a new row to a data set that is connected to a leaderboard or line graph, you will need to modify your widget settings to include this new data if you want it represented within your AppInsights widget(s).

Design and styling play an important role in promoting a metrics driven culture. At AppInsights, we’ve worked hard to provide a clean and sharp design structure so that your KPIs remain legible and visually appealing, even after years of use.

However, we understand that some customers have unique design preferences that they’d like to incorporate into their dashboard environments. That’s why we offer our Advanced Styling feature, which will allow experienced designers to drive consistency between their AppInsights dashboards and custom brand assets (logos, fonts, colors, etc).

Below is a primer on how this works as well as some quick examples to get you started:

Please note: we recommend that our Advanced Styling feature only be used by AppInsights customers with significant experience and/or background with the CSS stylesheet language. While it is possible to target and modify almost every element of your AppInsightsdashboards, it is also possible to trigger an application crash if certain classes and properties are misused. Our team supports only the changes / script snippets provided below.

If you are unfamiliar with CSS, but would still like to modify the stylistic elements of your dashboard, we recommend your use of our Basic Styling feature.

To get started, navigate to the large gear icon at the top right of your AppInsights dashboard environment and select the “Advanced Styling” menu.

This will open a new window with a large text area that acts as an in-app CSS stylesheet. If you are an experienced CSS designer, once you’ve identified the appropriate classes / properties that you would like to modify, you can follow standard syntax and structure to begin making changes.

For the less experienced, we’ve provided some basic CSS snippets below that should satisfy most of the stylistic changes you may be interested in making. Feel free to cut and paste these samples directly into your stylesheet after making any specific property changes (i.e. font or color preferences). Once you’ve made your desired changes, be sure to hit the “Apply CSS” button, otherwise your CSS scripts will not be applied / saved.

Please note that using the snippets as they are presented below will target ALL widgets across ALL dashboards. If you’d like to target individual widgets on your dashboards for more targeted styling changes, you’ll need to make note of its unique CSS identifier. This can be found by navigating to the gear icon at top right of your widget and selecting the “Edit Widget Settings” menu. From there, navigate to the “Widget Settings” tab and navigate to the bottom where you will find the CSS ID (“w_XXXXXX”).

To target a specific widget, simply add the relevant CSS ID prior to the class you intend to change. For example, the first snippet below would only change the Widget Title for widget “w_712650” to 2em relative size, the second snippet would change all Widget Titles to the 2emsize.

#w_712650 .wgt-title-container {

font-size: 2em!important;

}

.wgt-title-container {

font-size: 2em !important;

}

One final note before providing these code snippets: you must include the “!important” string after modifying any CSS property. This ensures that the existing styling will be over-written by your custom class and property changes.

Change dashboard background color

.lt-dashboard {

background-color: #707070 !important;

}

Before

After

Change dashboard text style

.lt-dashboard {

font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif !important;

font-weight: normal !important;

text-transform: uppercase !important;

}

Before

After

Change widget title text style

.wgt-title-container {

font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Grande", sans-serif !important;

font-weight: bold !important;

text-transform: capitalize !important;

color: #6eecff !important;

font-size: 1.5em !important;

}

Before

After

Change widget background color

When using the .wgt-containertagto target an individual widget, please do not include a space between your widget identifier and the element tag. For example: #w_712650.wgt-container

.wgt-container {

background-color: #236e78 !important;

}

Before

After

Change widget radius (corners rounded vs. square)

When using the.wgt-containertagto target an individual widget, pleasedo notinclude a space between your widget identifier and the element tag. For example: #w_712650.wgt-container

.wgt-container{

border-radius: 10em !important;

}

Before

After

Add widget border and color

When using the.wgt-containertagto target an individual widget, pleasedo notinclude a space between your widget identifier and the element tag. For example: #w_712650.wgt-container

.wgt-container{

border: 2px solid #ffffff !important;

}

Before

After

All snippets included

/*CHANGE DASHBOARD BACKGROUND COLOR*/

.lt-dashboard {

background-color: #707070 !important;

}

/*CHANGE DASHBOARD TEXT STYLE*/

.lt-dashboard {

font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif !important;

font-weight: normal !important;

text-transform: uppercase !important;

}

/*CHANGE WIDGET TITLE TEXT STYLE*/

.wgt-title-container {

font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Grande", sans-serif!important;

font-weight: bold !important;

text-transform: capitalize !important;

color: #6eecff !important;

font-size: 1.5em !important;

}

/*CHANGE WIDGET BACKGROUND COLOR*/

.wgt-container{

background-color: #236e78 !important;

}

/*CHANGE WIDGET RADIUS*/

.wgt-container{

border-radius: 10em !important;

}

/*ADD WIDGET BORDER AND COLOR*/

.wgt-container{

border: 2px solid #ffffff !important;

}

A reminder: once you’ve entered any of the above snippets into your Advanced Styling window, be sure to hit the blue “Apply CSS” button, otherwise your code will not be saved and no changes will be made.

The quality and relevance of your KPIs should be your primary focus as you begin designing your AppInsights dashboards. However, it doesn’t hurt for your data to look good as well...especially if you plan to show-off your dashboards in a board room, on a sales floor, or as an element of your NOC.

If you intend to make comprehensive changes to our default styling, you might be interested in exploring our Advanced Styling feature. But for those users that would like to make some basic tweaks, our Basic Styling feature may do the trick.

To get started, navigate to the large gear icon at the top right of your AppInsights dashboard environment and select the “Basic Styling” menu.

Enable a Color Theme

If the default, dark styling of our app is not fitting for your use-case, enabling a light color theme is an easy way to brighten things up. Please note that both background and font color fills will change to optimize for your new theme.

Dark theme

Light theme

Show widget backgrounds in Display Mode

If you’d prefer not to see the subtle background colors for individual widgets when in Display Mode -- you can enter Display Mode by clicking the eyeball icon at top left of app -- check this box to create a flatter dashboard look.

With backgrounds

Without backgrounds

Hide the dashboard header / footer in Display Mode

If you’d like to free up some additional space for your widgets, removing the dashboard header and/or footer in Display Mode will expand the available space. Please note: removing these elements from your dashboard means you will no longer see your dashboard title in Display mode, nor will you see the date, time, or AppInsights logo (or any custom logo you’ve uploaded).

Header removed

Footer removed

Header & footer removed

If you’d like to maintain the footer, but prefer your own company logo instead of the AppInsights logo, simplyenter the URL for the hosted image and hit “Save”. Please note: the logo image file you upload will automatically re-size to fit the available space, with a max height of 48 pixels.

Use a dashboard background image

The final Basic Styling option is to customize the dashboard background. To do so, check the box and select from the available options, or click the “+” button to upload an image of your own. Depending on the size of your uploaded image, you may want to stretch the dashboard background image to fit.

Regardless of the changes made, be sure to hit “Save” once you’re finished making styling decisions to see the change take effect.

IP whitelisting can be used as a security precaution to ensure that only users attempting to access your AppInsights dashboard(s) from a specific IP (or set of IP’s) can gain access. From the “IP Whitelisting” menu you can add multiple IP Addresses and give them unique descriptions for reference purposes.

To enable, navigate to the primary Settings menu and select "IP Whitelisting" -- from there you can add multiple IP Addresses and given them unique descriptions for reference purposes.

Once you’ve successfully connected your data source, it’s time to customize the content and structure of your widget(s). By hovering over your widget and hitting the gear icon at top right, you’ll notice that there are a number of different menu options. We will cover each of these in detail below.

EDIT WIDGET SETTINGS

CSV upload tool

Whether you’ve made a new connection to one of our integrated web services, or you’ve connected a custom data source -- database, spreadsheet, API push or fetch -- the “Edit Widget Settings” menu will now offer new options to modify the data being passed through to your widget (“Data Settings” tab), and the structure of the visualization used to represent this data (“Widget Settings”) tab.

We will explain how you can use the “Edit Widget Settings” menu in more detail below, both for widgets connected to a web service integration and for those pulling in custom data.

>>Web service integrations

Continuing our Google Analytics example from the Step 2: Connecting your data guide, perhaps you’re interested in monitoring the total number of site visitors for the past day rather than the past hour (the default setting). To modify your data accordingly, you’d simply need to select a different option from the “Data Resolution” drop-down. Or perhaps you’re interested in representing analytics data from another website that is connected to your Google Analytics account -- simply select the connected website from the “Account” drop down.

The “Widget Settings” tab will assist you in structuring the visual elements of your widget. Using our example, you could modify the historical timeline of your data -- do you want to see your site visitors tracked over the past week? The past month? The past year? Use the “Time Period” drop drown to modify the x-axis to suit your specific needs. Or maybe you want to modify the bounds of your y-axis, change your widget title, or pick a unique color for your sparkline -- these can all be accomplished within the widget settings menu.

Please note that the options presented in our data and widget settings tabs will differ by service, and by visualization. With this in mind, we encourage users to experiment with the various settings that will impact the content and structure of their widgets. If you’re having specific issues with the Edit Widget Settings menu that is preventing you from surfacing the metrics that matter most to you, please send a note to our support team.

Once you’ve made the desired changes to your data and widget settings, hit the blue “Save” button to return to your dashboard and view your populated widget. To build a compelling set of dashboards you’ll follow these steps many times over, combining metrics from various services and sources until your dashboards present a compelling story to your team.

>>Custom data: database, spreadsheet, API push or fetch

As our custom data tools retrieve and represent data in an entirely different fashion than our out-of-the-box web service integrations, your options within the data and widget settings tabs will differ slightly. When connecting data from a database, CSV, Google Sheet, or using our API, the AppInsights app will expect that your data has already been processed and formatted to cooperate with the visualization that you’ve chosen. As a result, the Data Settings tab will present options for connecting your data -- i.e. providing your database query, selecting your Google sheet cells -- rather than options that will allow you to modify the content of the data itself.

The Widget Settings tab will function very similarly for visualizations that are populated with custom data. Users will have basic options to customize the visual elements of the widget -- these will vary depending on the visualization employed. Please note that depending on the format of the data being passed through, the specifications you make within the Widget Settings menu can change the visualization in such a way that might negatively impact the presentation of your data. For instance, uploading one week of data for a line graph using the CSV upload tool and then specifying that you would like your widget time range (x-axis) to cover the last year will yield a graph that is largely empty.

If you have more questions about the best way to represent a certain type of custom data using our available visualization options, please send a ticket to our support team.

MOVE WIDGET TO

This menu option will allow you to move an existing widget to another dashboard. This move will preserve the widget, the data it contains, all its settings, and it’s data stream identifier.

COPY WIDGET TO

This menu option will allow you to create a copy of your widget, either on the current dashboard or on another dashboard of your choosing (space permitting). Please note that your widget copy will maintain the same settings and data, but will carry a new widget identifier (for advanced styling purposes).

ADD DATA

Any widget with this menu option will allow you to manually enter data into a text window, which will then be instantly surfaced within your widget. Please note that if this is used on a widget that is actively streaming data from one of our service integrations, any incoming data will still be pushed into the widget as normal. This means that in most cases, new data will displace whatever you’ve manually added. The Add Data option is most commonly leveraged by users of our HTML widget.

ANALYZE WIDGET

This menu option is exclusive to users on our 20-dashboard “ Engage ” plan. Part of our Collaboration feature, Analyze Widget will zoom in on your selected widget and allow you to swap between your visualization and the raw data that is used to populate it. Users on your account will also have the ability to add comments to widgets through the menu, which are then viewable in the Collaboration window.

Analyze Widget - expanded widget view

Analyze Widget - raw data view

DOWNLOAD DATA

This menu option will let you download all the data that is currently contained within your widget to a .CSV file. For your convenience, the .CSV file will contain your widget’s data stream identifier, and will be formatted for compatibility with our .

DELETE WIDGET

This will delete your widget permanently, along with any data contained within. Once selected, a warning will appear. However, once you confirm that you would like to delete your widget, you will not be able to undo the deletion and your data will be permanently lost.

AppInsights' Facebook integration has always made it easy for you to keep track of your Facebook KPIs (likes, impressions, etc.). Now you can also monitor the media posts (images, videos, etc.) that appear on the feeds that are most important to you. To pull in the most recent image or video screenshot from a Facebook feed, just use the “Latest Post” image widget offered by our Facebook integration.

Please note:it is only possible to retrieve media posts from public Facebook pages, or from pages that specify you as an administrator.

To get started, navigate to the Services panel -- "+ Add Widget" button on the right side of the app -- and click the Facebook app tile. At the bottom of the list of available metrics, you can choose “Latest Post”.

Once you’ve deployed your new image widget to the dashboard, you’ll need to authenticate your Facebook account (if you haven’t already). To do so, hit the gear icon at top right of your new widget and select the “Edit Widget Settings” menu. From this menu, hit the blue “Connect” button and a pop-up window will invite you to enter your Facebook credentials and extend access permissions to Leftronic. You will only need to do this once

Once your Facebook account is connected, you’ll be redirected to the “Data Settings” tab. If you’d like to retrieve media posts from a Facebook page that you administrate, choose “Preset” as your Account Type and select an account from the “Account” dropdown menu. You can also choose to include the Post Date with a corresponding local time zone.

Alternatively, you can choose “Custom” as your Account Type and enter the Page Name for a public Facebook feed. (To find the Page Name, navigate to the public page on Facebook and use the string of text that immediately follows the primary facebook URL). Don’t forget to include the Post Date with a corresponding local time zone, if desired.

The “Widget Settings” menu will allow you to give your widget a title, vertically align the image to your preference, and limit your feed length (to prevent the filling of useful dashboard space with post text).

Once you’re finished modifying your settings, hit the blue “Save” button and your image widget will populate. The image will automatically update as new posts are made to the profile you’ve chosen to monitor.

Please note: if the public profile you’re monitoring has a recent post that does not include an image or video, the image presented in your widget will default to the profile image for the corresponding Facebook account.

AppInsights's Instagram integration has always made it easy for you to keep track of your Instagram KPIs (posts, tags, etc.). Now you can also monitor the media posts (images, videos, etc.) that appear on the feeds that are most important to you. To pull in the most recent image or video screenshot from an Instagram feed, just use the “Latest Post” image widget offered by our Instagram integration.

Please note: it is only possible to retrieve media posts from public Instagram accounts, or from accounts that you manage.

To get started, navigate to the Services panel -- “+ Add Widget” button on the right side of the app -- and click the Instagram app tile. At the bottom of the list of available metrics, you can choose “Latest Post”.

Once you’ve deployed your new image widget to the dashboard, you’ll need to authenticate your Instagram account (if you haven’t already). To do so, hit the gear icon at top right of your new widget and select the “Edit Widget Settings” menu. From this menu, hit the blue “Connect” button and a pop-up window will invite you to enter your Instagram credentials and extend access permissions to AppInsights. You will only need to do this once

Once your Instagram account is connected, use the “Data Settings” tab to specify the public feed you’d like to monitor (use a public Instagram handle without including the “@” prefix); you can also choose to include the Post Date with a corresponding local time zone.

The “Widget Settings” menu will allow you to give your widget a title, vertically align the image to your preference, and limit your feed length (to prevent the filling of useful dashboard space with post text).

Once you’re finished modifying your settings, hit the blue “Save” button and your image widget will populate. The image will automatically update as new posts are made to the public profile you’ve chosen to monitor.

AppInsights makes it easy for you to keep track of your Twitter KPIs (followers, feed data, etc.), but keeping an eye on your media posts -- or the media posts of competitors -- is also important when monitoring social media presence.

To pull in the most recent image or video screenshot from a public Twitter feed, navigate to the Services panel -- “+ Add Widget” button on right side of the app -- and select the Twitter app tile. At the bottom of the list of available metrics, you can choose “User Timeline Image”.

Once you’ve deployed your new image widget to the dashboard, you’ll need to authenticate your Twitter account (if you haven’t already). To do so, hit the gear icon at top right of your new widget and select the “Edit Widget Settings” menu. From this menu, hit the blue “Connect” button and a pop-up window will invite you to enter your Twitter credentials and extend access permissions to AppInsights. You will only need to do this once

Once your Twitter account is connected, use the “Data Settings” tab to specify the public feed you’d like to monitor (using a public Twitter handle preceded by “@”); you can also choose to include the Post Date with a corresponding local time zone.

The “Widget Settings” menu will allow you to give your widget a title, vertically align the image to your preference, and limit your feed length (to prevent the filling of useful dashboard space with post text).

Once you’re finished modifying your settings, hit the blue “Save” button and your image widget will populate. The image will automatically update as new posts are made to the public profile you’ve chosen to monitor.

Please note: if the public profile you’re monitoring has a recent post that does not include an image or video, the image presented in your widget will default to the profile image for the corresponding Twitter account.

Please note: these instructions are valid for AppInsightsusers who created their account after November 10th, 2014. If you are a legacy customer and signed up prior to our acquisition by AppDirect, please contact support for payment history information / receipts.

From time to time, you may need a history of the automated credit card payments that have processed for your AppInsights subscription. To access invoices and receiptsyou must be a billing admin in AppDirect to gain access to billing records. Typically, the creator of the AppInsightsaccount will also be a billing admin and can assign that access to other users as well.

To begin,start by logging into your AppInsightsaccount.

Once logged in to your account, select the “Account” tab on the top toolbar, and then hit "Billing" in the next screen.

You will be defaulted to the "Manage Invoices" pane where you can view a list of all your previous payments. By clicking any payment line item, you can view additional details on each individual payment and even print PDF versions of each payment receipt.

The leaderboard widget displays pairs of strings and values in numerical order. Within the widget settings are a few different options for number formats.

One of them is to show the values as a \%. Once you have select this option, 2 new fields will appear asking you to manually set what 100\% should be and what 0\% should be.

If you leave these fields blank, the default behavior is for the widget to set the maximum value as 100\% and the minimum value to be 0\%. However, you can also add in your own values for what should be set as 100\% and what should be set at 0\%.

And this is the result.

A number of our visualizations allow you to add visual goal lines or target areas that will immediately notify users when an important threshold has been reached. To set your goals for the visualizations listed below, start by entering the “Edit Widget Settings” menu and navigating to the Widget Settings tab.

>>Horizontal / Vertical Bar

Specify the minimum and maximum values of your bar so you have real-time information on progress towards goal. You can also use these values to ensure that a data point stays within certain bounds.

>>Dial

In addition to using the Widget Settings menu to specify a minimum and a maximum value, the dial widget allows you to segment your visualization with multiple colors so you understand how your KPI is performing against multiple areas of interest.

>>Stoplight

You can use our stoplight widget in a similar fashion to the dial widget. By specifying a middle and high value, you can track how well (or how poorly) a data point is tracking towards goal using a red / orange / green light system.

Please note that stoplight widgets do not actually present your data in numerical format. It will only be represented visually in relationship to the “Middle” and “High” values you specify.

>>Sparklines / Line Graphs

Both of these visualization types allow you to specify a goal value that is represented by a solid horizontal line across your graph. From the widget settings tab, simply specify your goal value and hit save to capture it on your visualization.

Please note that your goal line will not appear if you’ve manually set the bounds of your y-axis above or below the value of the goal line.

Our image widget is a great way to visually enhance the structure of your dashboards. Add a company logo, pictures of your sales reps along with their performance data, or embed an inspirational quote to keep everybody motivated!

To get started, navigate to the services panel (“+ Add Widget” button), select the “Content Widgets” tile, and then choose the Image widget.

You’ll notice that a new widget has been deployed to your dashboard and is waiting to be configured. Click the gear icon and select the “Edit Widget Settings” menu, or click the linked "configure this widget" text to hop directly to this menu.

You’ll notice that the “Data Settings” tab is blank -- there is no data being passed to this widget type -- but you can navigate to the “Widget Settings” tab to modify your widget title, limit the length of your image caption, or choose the alignment of your image.

Once you’ve made these changes, hit the blue "Save" button. Please note: even if you do not plan to make any changes to your widget settings, you must enter the “Edit Widget Settings” menu and hit the "Save" button for any new image widget. This is a mandatory step for activating the widget so that it will properly reference your image URL.

Now it's time to add your image and any associated caption! Hit the widget gear icon again, but this time select the “Add Data” menu.

You will then be presented with a new window with several text fields where you can enter your image URL, a caption title, and a caption. Please note: the image you use must be hosted -- we cannot upload an image from your computer.

Once you’ve entered your desired image and caption info, hit the blue “Save” button and your widget will populate! You may re-size the widget as desired and your image and caption text will automatically optimize to fit the new widget size.

Interested in adding a set of global clocks to your dashboard? Then our time widget is for you! There’s no limit to the number of time widgets you can add, they will all update in real-time, and we offer all global time zones.

To get started, navigate to the services panel (“+ Add Widget” button), select the “Content Widgets” tile, and then choose the Time widget.

You’ll notice that a new widget has been deployed to your dashboard and is waiting to be configured. Click the gear icon and select the “Edit Widget Settings” menu, or click the linked "configure this widget" to hop directly to this menu.

You’ll notice that the “Data Settings” tab is blank -- there is no data being passed to this widget type -- but you can navigate to the “Widget Settings” tab to modify your widget title, choose your timezone, and convert to a 24-hour time format (if desired). Make sure to hit the blue “Save” button once you’ve made your changes.

Our label widget makes it easy for you to more clearly differentiate between areas of focus on your dashboard. Think of it as a header widget that can be used to enter a title or text of any kind that will lend clarity to dashboard contents.

To get started, navigate to the services panel (“+ Add Widget” button), select the “Content Widgets” tile, and then choose the Label widget.

To change the widget contents, hit the gear icon and navigate to the “Edit Widget Settings” menu.

Because there’s no data stream populating this widget, you’ll notice that the “Data Settings” tab is empty. Instead, navigate to the “Widget Settings” tab to change the label text and make any desire modifications to the text alignment (left, center, right). Once you’ve made your changes, make sure to hit the blue “Save” button.

Being able to plot two or more lines on the same axis is a useful technique for comparing multiple data sets with comparative values. AppInsights lets you plot up to 5 series within one line graph widget, with the ability to mark each series with a unique color.

Please note: this tutorial is not service specific. You can use the line graph widget with a variety of different integrations, or using custom data. The instructions below assume that you have already successfully connected your data source to your line graph widget.

When you are ready to select a visualization for you data, select our line graph widget (not to be confused with the sparkline).

Click on the small gear icon on the widget and select the "Edit Widget Settings" menu.

As normal, you will be defaulted to the standard "Data Settings" tab. On the right side of the window, you'll notice a column titled "Manage Series". From here, you can change the name of an existing series (1), change the color of the series (2), or add a new series (3).

If you add a new series, you'll want to be sure you tweak your data settings in some way, otherwise the series' settings will automatically be set to the defaults and you may end up with duplicate lines...

Please note: you can select from our default colors...or add a custom color using a hex color code. If you choose the latter, you must press the "enter" button on your keyboard after entering the hex code for the color change to be confirmed.

Once you are done, click the blue "Save" button and your data will appear in your widget.

Please note: these instructions are valid for users who created their account after November 10th, 2014. If you are a legacy customer and signed up prior to our acquisition by AppDirect, please contact [email protected] to upgrade or change your plan.

As your company or team expands, it’s likely that you’ll need additional AppInsights dashboards to monitor new KPIs that have become relevant to growth. By following the instructions below, you can easily upgrade to a higher dashboard plan and/or switch from monthly to annual billing (or vice versa).

Start by logging into your AppInsights account and selecting the “Account” tab at the top right of your screen.

Payment History tutorial

You will automatically be re-directed to your AppDirect admin dashboard where you can choose to "Manage Apps".

The next screen will show you all of the various apps you're managing within your AppDirect account. To modify your AppInsights subscription, please click the "Update Subscription" button next to the AppInsights app tile.

You will then be prompted to select your new plan of choice and proceed through our standard checkout flow.

Please note that our billing system will automatically prorate your upgrade fees based on what you've already paid for the current billing period. If you’ve downgraded your plan, the amount you’ve already paid will be treated as a credit towards your new plan.

To access your receipt for the plan change, or any of your other payment receipt, please follow the instructions in our .

There are four different methods for connecting data to your AppInsights dashboards, each of which will be discussed in this section of our Getting Started tutorials...

Web Services

Database connectors (Amazon RedShift, MySQL, PostgreSQL)

Spreadsheet data (CSV, Google Sheet)

Custom API (Push, Fetch)

Web Services

We have a library of connectors to web services that offer astraightforward and easy method for pulling in key metrics generated by your project or team. (You can find a full list of integrations on our services page ).

You’ll want to start by selecting that app tile from the data sources panel. Let’s use our Google Analytics connectoras an example. Click on the "Add Widget" buttonand select the Google Analytics tile.

API: Fetch Data From a Custom Source

You’ll immediately be presented with a set of metric categories; select one of these and you’ll be brought to a list of metrics that correspond to this category. Let’s start by selecting the “Visits” category and selecting the “Site Visitors” widget.

Please note: not all integrations will offer unique metric categories. Selecting an app tile might immediately direct you to a list of available metrics across all categories.

Once you’ve selected your metric of choice, you will be prompted to select a visual output (or visualization) for the data -- let’s select the AppInsights line graph visualization. As soon as you’ve made this selection you’ll notice that a widget has been dropped on your dashboard with a gray gear icon in the center -- this means you have not yet provided your credentials for the connected web service, or that you have not yet confirmed which of your connected accounts you would like to use to populate your widget (if you have two separate Google Analytics accounts, for example).

To connect your Google Analytics account, hover over the un-populated widget and you will be invited to “configure this widget”. You can either select the gray gear icon at top right of the widget and select the “Edit Widget Settings” menu, or you can click the linked text to hop directly to this menu.

When connecting an account for the first time, you’ll notice that the “Authentication” window will automatically suggest that you add one. Click the blue “Connect” button to initiate this process.

Please note: there are two different workflows for connecting your web service data to your AppInsights dashboards. You will either be prompted to enter your standard login credentials -- the same username / password you would use to access this service directly (OAUTH) -- or you will be prompted to enter the API key that corresponds to your account.

While the OAUTH flow will be very similar from one service to the next, the process of finding your API key will differ depending on the service you’re connecting to AppInsights.

Once you've entered your Google Analytics credentials, the fields and filters within the "Edit Widget Settings" menu will fill with their default settings. To finish this step, simply hit the blue "Save" button and your widget will begin pulling data...

At any time, you can re-enter the “Edit Widget Settings” menu to modify the structure of the data being retrieved by the widget (“Data Settings” tab), as well as the format of the visualization you’ve chosen to represent the data (“Widget Settings” tab). Once you’ve made the desired changes to your data and widget settings, just be sure to hit the blue “Save” button to return to your dashboard and view your modified widget.

DATABASE CONNECTORS

For those users that would like to run direct SQL queries against a database instance, we currently offer several DB connectivity options: Amazon RedShift, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. To leverage these tools, Click on the "Add Widget" buttonand -- for MySQL or PostgreSQL -- select the “Databases” tile and then select the format of the data you’ll be retrieving. Amazon RedShift has a tile of its own within our services panel, with similar data format options.

Data Sources - Creating MySQL, PostgreSQL, Amazon Redshift Connections

SPREADSHEET DATA

>>CSV Upload Tool -- For many companies, interactions with company data and KPIs have been reserved to carefully prepared Excel spreadsheets and graphs. While the purpose of AppInsights is to provide your team with live, dynamically updating dashboards...we don’t want to invalidate any strong internal processes you’ve designed around spreadsheet creation.

For these reasons, we’ve designed a tool that will allow you to upload spreadsheet data for representation within AppInsights as long as it is properly formatted to cooperate with our visualizations. To get started, navigate to the “My Custom Data” tile and populate the dashboard with the visualizations you would like to use. Once you’ve properly formatted you data, you can drag your CSV file to our “Upload Spreadsheet” pane (screenshots below).

For a full step-by-step guide, check out our CSV Upload Tool tutorial.

>>Google Sheet integration -- If you’re interested in taking your spreadsheet data one step further, you’ll want to check out our Google Sheet integration. While our CSV Upload Tool requires a fresh upload of data whenever you’d like your visualizations to update, our Google Sheet Integration will allow you to maintain all of your data in an online spreadsheet -- anytime you modify the data points or data sets on this sheet, the changes will automatically be reflected in your connected AppInsights widgets.

To get started, navigate to the Google Spreadsheet tile in our Services pane. You can then select the data format and corresponding visualizations you would like to use to represent your data.

For a full step-by-step guide, check out our tutorial on creating a Google Sheets dashboard.

CUSTOM API

>>Push & Fetch data tools -- For users with a high level of technical aptitude that plan to represent large amounts of custom data within AppInsights, we recommend our custom Push or Fetch data tools. As long as the necessary infrastructure is in place to host your scripts, you can push or pull data into your AppInsights visualizations as quickly as every 10 seconds.

Similar to using our CSV Upload Tool, you’ll want to start by populating the dashboard with the visualizations you would like to use to represent your data. From there, you can enter the “Edit Widget Settings” menu for each of the visualizations on your dashboard to find the corresponding Access Key and Stream Name identifiers.

For more information, you’ll want to read our comprehensive API documentation which includes information on all of the supported packages and libraries. You can also check out our step-by-step tutorials for both the Push and Fetch data tools:

API: Push Data to AppInsights Widgets

The ability to monitor KPIs for individual teams or projects is one of the major benefits of the AppInsights platform. But what about investigating the correlation between two separate data streams? It’s easy enough to drag and drop your widgets to visually compare one data-set to another, but let’s take it one step further

Our Widget Math Functions allow users to run basic calculations -- addition, subtraction, multiplication, division -- between two data streams. Alternatively, you can compare the value of a single data stream to a constant value that you specify (to calculate your trajectory towards a pre-defined goal, for example).

To get started, you’ll need to identify the two data streams you’d like to use for your calculation. These data stream identifiers can be found in the “Edit Widget Settings” menu of any widget on your dashboard. Just hover over the populated widget and a gear icon will appear at top right of the widget; click the icon and select “Edit Widget Settings”. From the “Data Settings” tab, scroll down and click the “API Access” drop-down to reveal the unique data stream identifier for your widget.

Once you’ve identified and made note of your data stream identifiers, navigate to the Services panel by clicking the “+ Add Widget” button on the right side of the app. Select the Widget Math Functions tile and then choose the visualization you would like to use to represent the custom data point you’re going to create.

Once you've selected the visualization you'd like to use, hit the blue gear icon for your new widget and enter the “Edit Widget Settings” menu.

Use the two “Data Source” drop-down menus to find and select the two data streams you'd like to use in the calculation, and then choose the function you'd like to run. (If you’re interested in running a calculation between a single data stream and a “Constant Value”, you can select this option and specify your value under Data Source 2.)

Once you’ve selected your streams and the corresponding math function, hit the blue save button and your new widget will automatically populate. As the values of your selected data streams update, the function will re-calculate to reflect a new, accurate value.

For those of you who have already mastered our basic reporting functionality -- tutorial here -- our scheduled reports feature will make sharing your dashboards even easier.

For starters, navigateto the "Email Report" menu by hitting the wrench icon at the top right of your current dashboard:

From there, you can list as many recipient emails as you’d like (separated by commas), specify a custom message, and select the file format that is most appropriate (JPEG or PDF).

Rather than hitting save right away, this time you’ll want to click the “Scheduled Reports” dropdown at bottom right. This dropdown will allow you to specify which days you would like your dashboard report to be automatically sent, and at what time of day (make sure to choose your local time zone).

Once you’ve made your selections, hit the “Update Schedule” button and your new report will automatically be sent on the schedule you’ve specified. Keep in mind, your scheduled reports are unique to each dashboard...so please follow these same instructions if you’d like to create a scheduled report for another one of your dashboards.

We offer a number of different ways for you to share your AppInsights dashboards. One simple way to show off your metrics is to send an image or PDF of your dashboard to relevant colleagues or clients. To get started, navigate to the"Email Report" menu by hitting the wrench icon at the top right of your current dashboard:

Scheduled reports

From there, you can list as many recipient emails as you’d like (separated by commas), specify a custom message, and select the file format that is most appropriate.

Once you’ve listed your emails and customized your message (if desired), simply hit the blue “Send” button and your dashboard will be on its way to your recipients!

If scheduling an automated report is of interest, please check out our “” tutorial.

Understanding the capabilities (and limitations) of our widgets will be a critical part of designing a successful set of dashboards. Scroll down for information on the minimum and maximum size of each widget, the “data memory” that will be available for export (CSV or API), and any other helpful tidbits about our visualization options.

Please note that none of our widgets will store data beyond the one year mark. Also, for Line Graph or Sparkline widgets with over 3,000 data points stored, decimation will occur so that historical data is presented more legibly.

If you have any technical questions about the functionality of our various widgets, please send a ticket to our support team.

Number

Min size: 3x2

Max size: 24x6

Data store: 5 stream-points

Horizontal Bar

Min size: 3x2

Max size: 24x12

Data store: 5 stream-points

Vertical Bar

Min size: 3x3

Max size: 24x12

Data store: 5 stream-points

Dial

Min size: 3x3

Max size: 24x12

Data store: 5 stream-points

Stoplight

Min size: 3x2

Max size: 6x6

Data store: 5 stream-points

Line Graph

Min size: 3x2

Max size: 24x12

Data store: 3,000 stream-points

Sparkline

Min size: 2x1

Max size: 24x12

Data store: 3,000 stream-points

Text Feed

Min size: 4x4

Max size: 24x12

Data store: 12 stream-points

Leaderboard

Min size: 4x4

Max size: 24x12

Data store: 2 stream-points

Pie Chart

Min size: 4x4

Max size: 24x12

Data store: 2 stream-points

Bar Graph

Min size: 1x1

Max size: 24x12

Data store: 2 stream-points

World Maps

Min size: 4x3

Max size: 24x12

Data store: 500 stream-points

List

Min size: 4x4

Max size: 24x12

Data store: 2 stream-points

Image

Min size: 1x1

Max size: 24x12

Data store: 2 stream-points

Label

Min size: 3x1

Max size: 24x1

Data store: 2 stream-points

XY Graph

Min size: 4x3

Max size: 24x6

Data store: 250 stream-points

Table

Min size: 4x4

Max size: 24x12

Data store: 2 stream-points (1,500 row max)

HTML

Min size: 3x1

Max size: 24x12

Data store: 2 stream-points

The Time

Min size: 3x2

Max size: 6x2

Data store: N/A

Gallery

Min size: 3x4

Max size: 24x12

Data store: 50 stream-points

Multi-bar Graph

Min size: 4x3

Max size: 24x12

Data store: 2 stream-points

Our HTML widget is a robust tool for users who wish to add custom content to their dashboard environment. You can iframe videos or webpages, represent data using a selection of Javascript libraries -- Backbone.js, Highcharts, d3.js -- or simply write HTML code directly within the app.

To get started, navigate to the services pane on the right side of the app ("+ Add widget" button). Select “Content Widgets” and then the “<HTML>” tile -- you’ll notice that a new widget has been deployed to your dashboard.

Now that you have your widget, you need to specify if you will be using HTML or one of the integrated Javascript libraries to populate your widget. Hit the gear icon at top right of your widget and select the “Edit Widget Settings” menu.

You’ll immediately be defaulted to the “Widget Settings” tab where you can select a Javascript library. If you would like to use HTML code, you do not need to check a box.Simply hit the save button and by default the widget will be prepared to accept / process your HTML.

Please note: you cannot add HTML to your new widget prior to entering the “Edit Widget Settings” menu and hitting the “Save” button.

Now that you’ve specified your library of choice, you’ll want to start adding your script. To do so, you’ll once again need to navigate to the gear icon at top right of your widget -- this time select the “Add Data” menu. You’ll then be presented with a large text field where you can enter your code. Just be sure to hit the “Save” button once you’ve made your changes!

Our custom data tools are designed to make it incredibly easy for users to connect unique data sources to their dashboards. The new Fetch Data tool has replaced our legacy Pull API functionality, empowering users to connect to any URL, provide their authentication, and write necessary JavaScript directly within the AppInsights app. This means no more infrastructure costs to execute your scripts...and you can now retrieve endpoint data for almost any open API.

Prior to using this walkthrough, you may be interested in reviewing our full API documentation for more context on the technical capabilities of the Fetch Data tool.

To get started, navigate to the Services pane, select the API Data Widgets tile, and then the “Fetch Data” option. You will be presented with a list of visualization options to choose from.

AppInsightsformat

Select your visualization and you'll notice that a new widget will appear on your dashboard. Any time a new custom data widget is deployed to the dashboard, it will need to be configured. To get started, hit the gear icon and navigate to the “Edit Widget Settings” menu.

From the “Data Settings” tab, you can input your URL, any required authentication information -- Basic or custom headers -- and any JavaScript required to modify your data and/or convert it to AppInsights’s native format.

Authentication methods:

Please note that there are several different types of authentication that are commonly used by APIs.Currently Fetch Dataonly supports Basic Auth, Custom header authentication, and API keys in the URL.Unsupported methods include OAuth (both 1.0 and 2.0) and signatures.

Here is a short description that will help you identify each of the authentication methods mentioned above.

Basic auth- Consists of a username and password that is base64-encoded and passed into the HTTP “Authorization header.

Custom Header Authentication- Same idea as basic auth but can contain more information in headers. Fetch Datasupports up to 2 header-value pairs.

API Key in URL- The API key is directly built into the the URL. In this case, simply select “no-authentication” and submit it in the URL field. Exception.

Testing your script:

As an additional tool, you can test your script while in this menu by clicking on the “Run” button for testing. The results of your script will then be displayed in the “Results” field, where you can check for proper formatting or just to verify your data.

Real world example:

As an example, we will go through the setup process for connecting to an API endpoint from Yahoo Finance ( http://finance.yahoo.com /) to fetch the price quote for the Company Alphabet (i.e. Google).

It’s not well publicized but Yahoo Finance has a public API that will give stock data. Here is an example URL we can use:

https://query.yahooapis.com/v1/public/yql?q=select\%20*\%20from\%20yahoo.finance.quotes\%20where\%20symbol\%20in\%20(\%22GOOG\%22)&format=json&env=store\%3A\%2F\%2Fdatatables.org\%2Falltableswithkeys

Note that the symbol for Google (GOOG) needs to be inserted into the URL.

Because the Yahoo Finance API does not require authentication we can select “No Authentication” and move on to the script.

Script:

By default, there’s a simple command that should return the raw data already in the Script field.

return JSON.parse(data);

Simply hit the “Run” button and you will see the results appear in the Results field. Here is a sample response for your reference:

{

"query": {

"count": 1,

"lang": "en-US",

"results": {

"quote": {

"PriceBook": "4.08",

"OneyrTargetPrice": "946.22",

"DividendShare": null,

"ChangeFromFiftydayMovingAverage": "24.81",

"ExDividendDate": null,

"SharesOwned": null,

"PricePaid": null,

"DaysLow": "793.27",

"DividendYield": null,

"Commission": null,

"EPSEstimateNextQuarter": "9.31",

"ChangeFromYearLow": "133.36",

"FiftydayMovingAverage": "771.61",

"EarningsShare": "27.32",

"AverageDailyVolume": "1753360",

"DaysRange": "793.27 - 798.65",

"MoreInfo": null,

"EBITDA": "28.29B",

"Change_PercentChange": "+2.22 - +0.28\%",

"AnnualizedGain": null,

"ShortRatio": "1.18",

"LastTradeDate": "12/20/2016",

"PriceSales": "6.40",

"EPSEstimateCurrentYear": "34.44",

"BookValue": "194.60",

"Bid": "795.00",

"AskRealtime": null,

"PreviousClose": "794.20",

"EPSEstimateNextYear": "40.91",

"Volume": "950959",

"HoldingsGainPercent": null,

"PercentChange": "+0.28\%",

"TickerTrend": null,

"Ask": "796.23",

"ChangeRealtime": null,

"PriceEPSEstimateNextYear": "19.47",

"HoldingsGain": null,

"Change": "+2.22",

"YearHigh": "816.68",

"Open": "796.76",

"MarketCapitalization": "548.92B",

"Name": "Alphabet Inc.",

"HoldingsValue": null,

"PercentChangeFromTwoHundreddayMovingAverage": "+4.97\%",

"AfterHoursChangeRealtime": null,

"symbol": "GOOG",

"ChangePercentRealtime": null,

"DaysValueChange": null,

"LastTradeTime": "4:00pm",

"StockExchange": "NMS",

"DividendPayDate": null,

"LastTradeRealtimeWithTime": null,

"Notes": null,

"DaysRangeRealtime": null,

"PERatio": "29.15",

"DaysValueChangeRealtime": null,

"ErrorIndicationreturnedforsymbolchangedinvalid": null,

"ChangeinPercent": "+0.28\%",

"YearLow": "663.06",

"DaysHigh": "798.65",

"PercentChangeFromFiftydayMovingAverage": "+3.22\%",

"PEGRatio": "1.23",

"ChangeFromTwoHundreddayMovingAverage": "37.71",

"HoldingsValueRealtime": null,

"PercentChangeFromYearLow": "+20.11\%",

"TradeDate": null,

"LastTradeWithTime": "4:00pm - <b>796.42</b>",

"BidRealtime": null,

"YearRange": "663.06 - 816.68",

"HighLimit": null,

"OrderBookRealtime": null,

"HoldingsGainRealtime": null,

"Currency": "USD",

"LowLimit": null,

"HoldingsGainPercentRealtime": null,

"TwoHundreddayMovingAverage": "758.71",

"PERatioRealtime": null,

"PercebtChangeFromYearHigh": "-2.48\%",

"ChangeFromYearHigh": "-20.26",

"PriceEPSEstimateCurrentYear": "23.12",

"LastTradePriceOnly": "796.42",

"Symbol": "GOOG",

"MarketCapRealtime": null

}

},

"created": "2016-12-21T00:02:49Z"

}

}

Next, because the data returned is JSON, we parse it with the JavaScript JSON tool and save that as the variable “data” (1). We can use the function “ parseFloat ” to select just the price resource (2). Then we will return that price in the AppInsights format and as a bonus, we can append a dollar sign prefix (3).

data = JSON.parse(data);

price = parseFloat(data.query.results.quote.LastTradePriceOnly)

return {number: price, prefix:"$"}

Now hit the “Run” button again and you should see the result.

{

"prefix": "$",

"number": 728.330017

}

If your results differ, double check your script and use the “Run” button to debug successive versions. Remember, the data must be in theif they are to render properly in the widget.

Once these fields have been entered, select your Fetch Interval -- 10sec minimum / 24hr maximum -- and hit the blue “Save” button to populate your widget.

This is just a basic example of our Fetch Data tool in action. We look forward to hearing from you with details on the unique uses you discover!

With AppInsights, we intend to provide our users with a product that maintains its value for many years. However, you may find that some of the data sources you were using initially are no longer relevant.

With this in mind, our Authentication management menu can be used to edit your credentials for any connected web services, or to delete your credentials and remove your data streams altogether.

To get started, navigate to the primary AppInsights settings icon and select the “Authentications” menu. Next, choose which authentication you’d like to manage and whether you’d like to edit or delete the account.

To modify the credentials for an existing account, select “Edit Authentication” for the relevant account. You will then be invited to click the blue “Connect” button which will re-initiate AppInsights'connection to the corresponding third-party service. Another window will then be opened that invites you to provide your fresh credentials. Once saved, your connected widgets will now use your new account information to retrieve data.

To delete your authentication, simply select “Delete Authentication” from the dropdown menu. The AppInsights app will then confirm that you are certain you want to make this change. Once made, all of your connected widgets will be removed from your dashboard(s) and your data will be lost.

Please note: if you have multiple users on your AppInsights account, any authentication changes will impact all users.

Our custom data tools are designed to make it incredibly easy for users to connect unique data sources to their dashboards. The Push Data tool is ideal for users that would like to export data from an on-premises server environment or other source that does not make data-sets available to AppInsights’s servers. Using your unique account access key and individual widget stream names, you can populate any AppInsights visualization as long as the corresponding data point or data set is provided in our native format.

Prior to using this walkthrough, you may be interested in reviewing our full API documentation for more context on the technical capabilities of the Push Data tool.

To get started, navigate to the Services pane, select the API Data Widgets tile, and then the “Push Data” option. You will be presented with a list of visualization options to choose from -- for this example, let’s use the basic Number widget.

Unix epoch

Select your visualization and you'll notice that a new widget will appear on your dashboard. Any time a new custom data widget is deployed to the dashboard, it will need to be configured. To get started, hit the gear icon and navigate to the “Edit Widget Settings” menu.

From the “Data Settings” tab, confirm the stream name for your widget. You may use the randomly generated stream name, or you can specify a name of your choice...but please note that you may not use the same stream name for multiple widgets. If you deploy a new custom data widget to the dashboard and do not first confirm the stream name from the “Edit Widget Settings” menu, you will be unable to populate your widget.

Using a basic curl command, send your “Access Key” -- consistent across all dashboards / widgets -- as well as your “Stream Name” -- unique to each widget -- and then structure the rest of your command line to cooperate with the visualization type you’ve chosen (detailed instructions in our API documentation ).

Our sample curl command will surface the number of seconds since the...

curl -X POST \

-d "{\"accessKey\": \"ziL2DDCUCGWuanTpPkBpg4WEMsrGZd0m\", \"streamName\": \"JxP2JrHB\", \"point\": {\"number\": "`date +\%s`", \"suffix\":\" seconds\"} }" https://www.leftronic.com/customSend/

A successful run of your command will immediately populate your corresponding AppInsights widget with the data you’ve generated

This is one basic example of our Push Data tool in action -- we look forward to hearing from you with details on the unique uses you discover!

While AppInsight’s third party integrations are intended to streamline the process of surfacing your company’s KPIs, it’s possible that you’re in the habit of organizing some portion of your company data in spreadsheet format. With this in mind, we’ve made it possible for users to easily populate their dashboard widgets with our CSV upload tool which treats data from an Excel file like a set of active data streams.

For users that are new to our CSV upload tool,we recommend you read this tutorial in full.

OVERVIEW

For each widget that you would like to populate using the CSV upload tool you’ll have to follow a number of steps:

Add a blank widget to your dashboard

Create / save widget data stream identifier

Format / save your .csv spreadsheet

Upload your spreadsheet

We will outline these steps below, and then provide you with the necessary information for populating all of our various visualization types. Let’s use our basic number widget for the purposes of this sample workflow...

ADD A BLANK WIDGET TO YOUR DASHBOARD

The first step to using our CSV upload tool is choosing the widget(s) that you would like to populate with data. Start by navigating to the services panel on the right side of the app ("+ Add Widget" button) and selecting the “API Data Widgets” tile.

yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssd

As the CSV upload tool will be “pushing” data into AppInsights using custom stream identifiers, you’ll want to select the “Push Data” option and then select the visualization you’d like to use.

For our example, we’ll select our standard number widget:

Once you’ve selected your visualization, a new widget will appear on your dashboard ready to be configured. To find the unique stream identifier that will allow you to populate your widget, hit the gear icon and select the “Edit Widget Settings” menu.

CREATE / SAVE WIDGET DATA STREAM IDENTIFIER

Within the “Edit Widget Settings” menu, you will default to the “Data Settings” tab where you will immediately see the unique stream name that has been generated for you widget. You can either use the randomly generated stream code that appears, or you can replace it with a custom name that you create. Please note: you cannot use the same stream name for multiple widgets, so be sure to keep track of any custom stream names you create to avoid confusion. Widget stream names are case-sensitive.

Once you’ve specified your stream name,make sure to hit the blue “Save” buttonso that your widget records the stream name you’ve specified.

Now that you have your widget stream name, you’ll need to add this reference to your spreadsheet in order for the data upload to be successful.

FORMAT / SAVE YOUR .CSV SPREADSHEET

For each widget type, there are“data keys”that will allow you to point out what spreadsheet data you would like to use to populate various parts of your widget. Each widget key must then be preceded by the data stream identifier we generated in our previous step.

Standard number widgets only have a single data key called “number”. The number key will communicate to AppInsights which spreadsheet cell you would like to use to populate the main value of your number widget. Here is the ideal organization of your spreadsheet data for a single number: Stream Name, then Key, then Data.

UPLOAD YOUR SPREADSHEET

Once you’ve saved your spreadsheet in CSV format, you can take the final step of uploading your spreadsheet to AppInsights. Just select the "Settings” menu (wrench icon) in the top right corner of the relevant dashboard and open the “Upload Spreadsheet” menu. From there, you can browse to upload your file -- a successful upload will yield a “Success!” message across the top of your dashboard environment, and you’ll notice that your widgets are now populated.

Please note: our CSV upload tool will not accept a file with the standard Excel extension, “.xls”. Instead, be sure to save your spreadsheet in the Comma Separated Values (CSV) format, which will strip your spreadsheet of any uncooperative custom styling or formatting.

As long as you do not change your data stream identifier, you can continue using the same spreadsheet to update your widget. Simply update your data, save the .csv, and follow the upload process once again. Any existing widget value will immediately be overwritten by the new spreadsheet value.

Please note that our CSV upload tool will allow you to populate multiple widgets using the same spreadsheet. Simply arrange your data in adjoining columns and ensure that your widget data streams and keys are matched with the correct corresponding columnized data. Read on for further clarity on how to organize your data for each visualization type.

KEYS BY WIDGET

Horizontal Bar, Vertical Bar, Dial, Stoplight

Line Graph, Sparkline

Leaderboard, Pie Chart, Bar Graph

List

XY Graph

Table

Multi-bar

The remainder of this tutorial will provide the unique keys for each widget type. Please note that the workflow for each widget will mirror the steps in our example above. For widgets with multiple keys, you will simply need to repeat the stream identifier at the top of your spreadsheet and organize your data in adjoining columns (screenshots below).

Horizontal Bar, Vertical Bar, Dial, Stoplight

“number” -- primary numerical value used to populate widget

Line Graph, Sparkline

“timestamp” -- determines time period along the x-axis;format required

“number” -- numerical values used to plot line along y-axis

“prefix” -- specify a symbol to immediately precede your data values (not shown in sample below)

Leaderboard, Pie Chart, Bar Graph

“name” -- text content used to identify leaderboard entry

“value” -- numerical value to accompany name item; widget is dynamically sorted based on these values

“suffix” -- specify a symbol to append to your data values

Text Feed

“imgUrl” -- URL for image used to accompany feed item title and message

“title” -- title text for feed item

“msg” -- message / content text for feed item

List

“listItem” -- text strings to be represented in your list

XY Graph

“x” -- numerical values to be plotted on the x-axis

“y” -- numerical values to be plotted on the y-axis

Table

Our table widget is unique in that is does not require specific keys of any kind. Instead, your data stream identifier should be followed by the header or title that you would like to use for that column of data. The table also does not limit the number of columns of data you upload.

Multi-bar

Similar to our table widget, the multi-bar graph does not require unique keys for different pieces of data. Instead -- because there are multiple dimensions to a multi-bar widget -- you can simply use your category titles in place of keys. (In the sample below, we've used "Email 1", "Email 2", "Email 3", etc.)

If you’ve read this far in our “Getting Started” section, chances are that you truly care about building a compelling set of dashboards for your company or team. With this in mind, we want to leave you with some final thoughts on the importance of thinking critically about the KPIs you choose to monitor, whether you’re a brand new user of the app, or have been a customer for many years

DASHBOARDS YOU CARE ABOUT

All KPIs are not created equal. One of the most common mistakes made by AppInsights users is an expectation that our platform can tell you which metrics you should be monitoring to grow your business, motivate your team, monitor your resources, etc. But each company is unique, as are the the metrics that indicate success. The primary success levers for a sales team in a digital agency will be entirely different than the success levers for a sales team in the world of B2B software. For these reasons, it’s important for users to spend the time and energy to understand which metrics actually drive the success of their businesses or confirm the success of the project(s) they’re monitoring within AppInsights.

How can this be accomplished? If you’re new to the AppInsights app -- or you’ve been a user for some time and are looking to put a “fresh face” on your dashboards -- start by answering the following questions:

What are the key areas of your business or team that you would like to focus on? What are the three KPIs that most directly impact their individual success?

Are you interested in tracking these data points or data sets historically? Or will a real-time number suffice?

What is the ideal visual format for the data points or data sets in question?

What will resonate most with your fellow dashboard stakeholders?

By engaging in these preparatory steps, you will come to the AppInsights app with a strong plan for success. Instead of depending on our out-of-the-box integrations to guide your focus, or hitting a wall with our custom data tools because you’re unsure of where to begin, you can begin by surfacing the KPIs that you’ve already identified as important levers within your business. There’s nothing worse than a dashboard that looks pretty but doesn’t actually provide any insight into the performance of your business or team. You can prevent this by making some initial notes on the ideal content / structure of your dashboards.

ITERATION & IMPROVEMENT

While AppInsights is best described as a data monitoring tool, this shouldn’t suggest that dashboard set-up is a one time project. Your dashboards should be a living compilation of the KPIs that are most important to your business or project at that point in time. Like any company or team however, priorities and goals can and will change as new products are created, new team members are added, etc. If your dashboards remain unchanged while all the elements that impact their content are changed...then they are sure to provide less insight and, as a result, become less actionable.

We recommend that our users continue tweaking and improving their dashboards as often as priorities change or new areas of interest emerge. Create a scratchpad dashboard where you can experiment with new KPIs; add new users and collaborate to identify new ideas or strategies; use our Widget Math Functions to run basic computation between different data streams. Here at AppInsights, we are committed to providing you with the data source availability and feature-set that will optimize your experience...but it’s up to you to make sure the data that you monitor actually matters.

After you’ve successfully connected your data sources and organized your widgets, another question emerges: what features will you use to drive interaction with your AppInsights dashboards? We offer a variety of complimentary features that facilitate dashboard viewing, sharing, and customization -- it’s up to you which ones you’d like to leverage.

Below is a quick recap of these features, along with direct links to their individual tutorials...

>>Basic Styling

For simple stylistic dashboard modifications like changing your background or adding your company logo, navigate to our Basic Styling menu (found in the main Settings menu - Gear Icon, top right).

Basic Styling: Changing dashboard theme options

>>Advanced Styling

For advanced stylistic changes like font, widget background color, borders, etc, navigate to our Advanced Styling menu (requires use of CSS stylesheet language).

Advanced Styling: Using custom CSS to style your dashboards

>>Share links & Collections

If you’re interested in sharing a live dashboard with a colleague or customer without offering editing privileges, you’ll want to use our share link feature. Share links are also ideal for representing a dashboard permanently in a company lobby, conference room, or call center as they simply require an active browser tab for proper representation.

You can create share-links for individual dashboards -- each with a unique URL -- or create a dashboard folder with a corresponding share link that will cycle through each live dashboard at a specified interval. Thorough instructions on both options can be viewed by following the link below:

Dashboard Folders: How To Navigate, Manage, And Share Groups Of Dashboards

>>IP Whitelisting

IP whitelisting can be used as a security precaution to ensure that only users attempting to access your AppInsights dashboard(s) from a specific IP (or set of IP’s) can gain access. From the “IP Whitelisting” menu you can add multiple IP Addresses and give them unique descriptions for reference purposes. Thorough instructions below:

IP Whitelisting: limiting access to your AppInsights dashboards

>>User management

Depending on the number of additional users that can be added to your account -- determined by your plan type -- you can invite a number of your colleagues to access your AppInsights account. When adding new users, you will be required to apply one of the following permission levels:

Owner -- same editing privileges as primary account admin

View & Edit -- full editing privileges but unable to invite additional users

View Only -- no editing or invitation privileges

For “view & edit” or “view only” users, an added level of security allows you to limit access to specific dashboards, or even specific authentications. Thorough instructions below:

User Management: How to add additional users to your AppInsights account

>>Data export

If you’re interested in interacting with your AppInsights widget data using other tools, you can easily export data to a CSV spreadsheet. Please note that the export history will vary depending on the widget in question. A standard number widget might only provide a single data point, while a line graph that has been populated over many months will be represented by a larger data-set within your exported spreadsheet.

The specifics of each visualization’s “data memory” can be found in our widget technical specs support doc.

Collaboration: posting and viewing comments

For users that are interested in exporting data dynamically using our custom API, please refer to the API documentation for comprehensive instructions.

>>Alerts

Monitorplan or above

Setting up alerts for your widgets ensures that you’re immediately notified when a goal is reached, or a KPI falls below an acceptable threshold. To begin setting up widget alerts, start by navigating to the primary AppInsights settings icon and selecting the “Alerts” menu. Using the data stream identifier for your widget(s), you can set unique alert(s) based on a goal or threshold for your KPI. There is no limit to the number of alerts you can set or the number of recipients for the notification. Full instructions can be found below:

Alerts: Setting Email Notifications For Your Widgets

>>Scheduled reports

Report plan or above

Our scheduled reports feature allows you to send an email with an attached image of your dashboard. You can send a one-time email, or you can automate a scheduled email that will send every week (or multiple times a week) at a day / time that you specify. To get started, open the share menu at the top right of your AppInsights dashboard.

For detailed, step-by-step instructions please check out our snapshot tutorials:

Reports: Send An Image Or PDF Of Your Dashboard Via Email

Scheduled Reports: Send An Image Or PDF Of Your Dashboard Via An Automated Email

>>Collaboration

Engage plan or above

Once multiple users have access to your AppInsights dashboards, it’s only a matter of time before questions and commentary around your KPIs begin to emerge. Our “Collaboration” feature was created with this in mind, and empowers users to initiate dialogue within AppInsights by adding comments to specific widgets. These comments can be made by, and are visible to, all users on your account with ownership and view & edit privileges. All comment history is also saved so you can catch up on recent AppInsights conversations you might have missed.

For more information on adding comments to your AppInsights widgets, check out the tutorial below:

Adding multiple users to your company’s AppInsightsaccount will allow them to separately log on with their own credentials and enable the assignment of different roles / permissions, dashboards, and authentications. Here, we will go through the process of adding users.

Inviting new users:

Any user you'd like to give access to your AppInsights dashboards must first be invited to create an account on the AppDirect marketplace. To initiate this process, navigate to the "Account" tab in the top right corner of the app.

You will be defaulted to the AppDirect marketplace admin dashboard where you can review all the recent events across your account. From this screen, you can also invite new users to create their accounts, individually or in bulk! For bulk invites, you can also specify users to have Billing and/or Company Admin priveleges (only do this if you'd like these users to be able to purchase additional applications, invite and assigns new users, etc).

Your invited users will receive an email welcoming them to the AppDirect marketplace (below). Please instruct them to follow the link and create their login credentials -- you will be unable to add them to your AppInsights dashboards until they have confirmed and created their AppDirect account.

Once your users have created their AppDirect account, navigate to the "Assign Apps" tab from your AppDirect admin dashboard. You can then select which users to assign to which applications. (The marketplace will automatically take into account how many user licenses you have paid for).

Now that your users have been assigned to the AppInsights application, you can navigate back to the app from the MyApps page and navigate to the Account Settings menu.

The Account Settings menu will allow you to specify levels of access for each user, as well as the specific folders, dashboards, and service authentications you'd like them to access.

Owner -- same editing privileges as primary account admin

View & Edit -- full editing privileges but unable to invite additional users

View Only -- no editing or invitation privileges

Be sure to hit the "Save Changes" button once you've made the proper assignments. After doing so, your users will now see the AppInsights tile on their MyApps page, and/or can access it via the AppDirect universal header.

Folders are a collection of dashboards that are gathered together in groups that are easier to organize by function and share with different audiences.

Navigation

Folders appear in the main nav bar right next to the “Add Widget” button. If more folders exist than can be displayed, search for them through the navigator (spy glass). Dashboard order can be rearranged by clicking the “Reorder Folders” button.

Click to select a folder. The folder panel on the left will display the name of the folder as well as the name and thumbnails of all the dashboards in that folder. It will also highlight and open the first dashboard in that folder. Navigate between dashboards by either clicking on a thumbnail, or scrolling in the workspace.

Organization

From within the folders panel, users can create new dashboards by clicking on the “Add Dashboard” thumbnail or the “Add Dashboard” button in the folders toolbar. Rearrange dashboard order by clicking and dragging the thumbnails.

To move the dashboard into a different folder, drag and drop the dashboard thumbnail right onto the folder, or into the navigator.

The gear icon in the folders toolbar opens the folder menu. Selecting “Folder Settings” will allow users to rename a folder or create a URL to share a folder.

The folder menu also contains the option to delete the folder that is currently being viewed. Please note that deleting a folder will delete all the dashboards, widgets, and data present in the folder so please be careful when doing so.

Sharing

The “share folders” URL is a URL that will open a view-only version of all the dashboards in an entire folder. After selecting “Enable” the URL will be activated the moment the “Save Changes” button is clicked.

Users can manually click through the dashboards with the navigation arrows, or enable Dashboard Auto Cycling by enabling the feature and selecting a cycling interval.

Building your data dashboard begins with adding widgets to your dashboard that are particular to a specific data source and visualization.

Adding Widgets

Every dashboard has an "Add Widget" button. When it is sellect, it will open up the services panel, a comprehensive list of all the data sources that you can connect to. Selecting a data source will open up further panels where you can select a specific metric and a visualization type to display that metric.

The Navigator

As you build more dashboards and create folders, you can rely on the navigator to search, view, and organize you dashboards into meaningful reports.

Click on the spyglass icon and a dropdown will appear containing your dashboards sorted by the folders they belong to. You can use the search bar to find things by key words and clicking on the dashboard will bring up that dashboard. You can also click on a dashboard thumbnail in the Folders Panel and drag and drop it into a folder from the Navigator dropdown and move the dashboard into that folder.

This tutorial is a more in-depth description of how to use our Database integrations. This tutorial is also applicable to Amazon Redshift, which at its hood is just a PostgreSQL database.We currently support two types of relational databases:MySQLandPostgreSQL. Please send us any suggestions for other databases you want us to support!Initial SetupWe strongly suggest you create a read-only user for your database, and you limit it only to the tables you wish to query. This is for security purposes; we do not sanitize the queries you enter in any way, so we would not want you to modify or delete any of your own data! Additionally, we suggest that you connect directly to a backup database or a read replica instead of your production database.MySQL: This is a good tutorial on creating a read-only user: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-create-a-new-user-and-grant-permissions-in-mysql PostgreSQL: The top-voted answer here has good instructions on creating a read-only Postgres user: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/760210/how-do-you-create-a-read-only-user-in-postgresql Additionally, many users keep their databases behind a firewall; in order for us to be able to access your database, please open up your database port to the following IPs:52.73.237.42

54.152.187.254If you wish to use SSL on Postgres or Amazon Redshift, this is supported by our integration and you do not need to do anything. SSL on MySQL is not yet supported.Finally, please make sure your database character encoding is set to UTF-8. We only support this encoding!AuthenticationAuthentication is largely the same for our three database types.ForDatabase Engine, select between MySQL and PostgreSQL. (If you are using the Amazon Redshift integration, this field will not show up).For theHost, enter the IP address of your database instance, in the format x.x.x.x. You can also enter a DNS name here, like mysql-us-east.rds.amazon.com, for example.UsernameandPasswordshould be the credentials for your read-only user.Database Nameis the name of the specific database you want to connect to.Portis optional and only necessary if your database is using a non-default port.After filling in the fields, click Connect. If there is an error, you will see a dialog and be prompted to re-enter your information. Typically, if there is a timeout error, check to make sure your firewall is open to the IPs earlier in this document.Using AppInsights Query widgetsFor this tutorial, we will use the following table of data. It has a row for every hat trick that was scored in the Spanish Football League. In our examples, the table will be named hat_tricks.

id

player

team

against

date

1

Cristiano Ronaldo

Real Madrid

Deportivo La Coruna

9/20/2014

2

Cristiano Ronaldo

Real Madrid

Elche

9/23/2014

3

Neymar

Barcelona

Granada

9/27/2014

4

Cristiano Ronaldo

Real Madrid

Athletic Bilbao

10/5/2014

5

Lionel Messi

Barcelona

Sevilla

11/22/2014

6

Carlos Vela

Real Sociedad

Elche

11/28/2014

7

Cristiano Ronaldo

Real Madrid

Celta Vigo

12/6/2014

8

Lionel Messi

Barcelona

Espanyol

12/7/2014

9

Antoine Griezmann

Atletico Madrid

Athletic Bilbao

12/21/2014

10

Lionel Messi

Barcelona

Deportivo La Coruna

1/18/2015

11

David Barral

Levante

Malaga

2/7/2015

12

Lionel Messi

Barcelona

Levante

2/15/2015

13

Alberto Bueno

Rayo Vallecano

Levante

2/28/2015

14

Lionel Messi

Barcelona

Rayo Vallecano

3/8/2015

15

David Barral

Levante

Almeria

4/4/2015

16

Cristiano Ronaldo

Real Madrid

Granada

4/5/2015

17

Santi Mina

Celta Vigo

Rayo Vallecano

4/11/2015

18

Luis Suarez

Barcelona

Cordoba

5/2/2015

19

Cristiano Ronaldo

Real Madrid

Sevilla

5/2/2015

20

Cristiano Ronaldo

Real Madrid

Espanyol

5/17/2015

21

Cristiano Ronaldo

Real Madrid

Getafe

5/23/2015

These queries are applicable to any of the three database types we support (MySQL, PostgreSQL and Amazon Redshift).Number QueryFor the number query widget, you must enter a query that returns a number. For example, entering the following query:SELECT COUNT(*) from hat_tricks WHERE team = "Barcelona"and clicking Save will result in the number 7 being displayed on your number widget. Note that each query type has a “Query Frequency” parameter. This allows you to select how often you wish this query to execute on your database server, and can be changed to various intervals from 10 minutes to 24 hours.Table QueryThe table query widget accepts data in a tabular format. Typically any database query can be represented as a table. For example, you can do something simple like:SELECT player, date FROM hat_tricksThis will show you a table of players and the date of their hat tricks.Leaderboard QueryThe leaderboard query widget requires your query to return two columns of data. The first column will be used as the labels and the second column as values. You can use a query like the following:SELECT team, COUNT(team) FROM hat_tricks GROUP BY teamWhich will return a leaderboard like the following. The leaderboard query can also be used for bar graphs and pie chars.XY QueryThe XY Query must return two columns of data, both of which will be interpreted as numerical data. The first column will correspond to X and the second to Y. You can use this to see trends, for example, number of hat tricks per month:SELECT (EXTRACT(MONTH FROM date) + 4) \% 12 as month, COUNT(id) FROM hat_tricks GROUP BY monthThis query gives you an X-Y graph, where X is the month from September (1) to May (9), and Y is the number of hat tricks for that month.Multibar GraphOur multibar graph is our newest and most powerful visualization/data analysis widget, and its functionality is similar to that of a pivot table. A multibar query must return three columns of data; the first two columns are used as the labels for the bars and bar segments, respectively, and the third column is numerical data.For example, the following query shows the breakdowns of hat tricks by quarter, the quarters being September-November, December-February, and March-May.SELECT ((((EXTRACT(MONTH FROM date) + 4) \% 12) - 1) DIV 3 + 1) AS quarter, player, COUNT(id) FROM hat_tricks GROUP BY quarter, player

Hello and welcome to the AppInsightssupport portal! This set of “Getting Started” guides is intended to introduce new users to the basic functionality of AppInsights and the important features they should be familiar with. If you’re completely new to our app or are simply looking to brush up on the basics, this is a great place to start.

AppInsights users have a tremendous amount of freedom in customizing the content and structure of their dashboards. As a new user, there are a number of key elements of the user interface that will be most important in getting your dashboards up and running.

AppInsights Basic Interface

API

The interface is divided into three parts:

1. Top Navigation Bar - Contains tools to help you create folders for your dashboard and make changes to your account level options.

2. Folders Panel - Folders are your main tools for organizing and managing your dashboards. Here you can find options for grouping different dashboards and sharing to different audiences.

3. Dashboard Panel - Where you put your visualizations, widgets and customize individual dashboards.

The Nav Bar

The Nav Bar contains the Navigator, bookmarks to folders of dashboards, a button to create new folders, a button to re-order bookmarked folders, and an Account Tools dropdown.

The Navigator opens to a keyword search bar and can open directly to a dashboard. You can also drag dashboards directly to a folderin the Navigator. The Account Tools dropdown contains options that are applied account-wide. These include styling options, IP whitelisting, authentication management, and user permissions.

Folders Panel

Folders are places to organize your data for particular audiences. The Folders Panel consists of info about a particular folder, a folders toolbar, and thumbnails of the dashboards in that folder. You can reorder these thumbnails simply by drag & drop.

The buttons in the folders Toolbar will let you open a slideshow of the dashboards in the toolbar, add dashboards to the folder, and open a dropdown that contains folder specific options, like sharing a folder with others and deleting the folder.

Dashboard Panel

The dashboard is a collection of widgetsthat tells a story. The dashboard panel contains the dashboard name, has a button to add widgets and a dropdown featuring dashboard specific options. These options include creating email reports of the dashboard, moving the dashboard, or deleting the dashboard.

Data Sources Panel

Clicking the add widget button will open the Data Sources Panel so you can choose how to connect to your data. These are divided into two sections: custom sources likedatabases ( Amazon RedShift, MySQL, and PostgreSQL ), Google Sheets, and the AppInsights, or web services like Google Analytics, Salesforce, and Facebook.

Widgets

Widgets are the basic unit in AppInsights and display a specific piece of data that you are interested in. Each widget contains the widget name, an Analyze Data button that will zoom into thespecific data in the widget, a widget settings dropdown that contains options specific to that widget type, and the visualized data and any associated legends and axes.

If you’ve decided that AppInsights is a good fit for your team, you’ll probably be interested in upgrading to one of our dashboard plans. This is a very straightforward process and can be initiated from within the AppInsights app.

If your trial period is still active, start by selecting the primary settings menu via the Gear icon at the top right of the app, then select "Upgrade Plan".

email us

You will then be brought to the AppDirect “Manage Apps” screen where you’ll be prompted to “Upgrade to Paid Edition”. If your trial has expired, you will be unable access your AppInsights dashboards but will instead be defaulted to the MyApps page upon login where you will similarly be able to "Upgrade to Paid Edition".

Trial active

Trial expired

Upon clicking either of these "Upgrade to Paid Edition" links, you’ll be prompted to select your preferred AppInsights dashboard plan. Once you’ve selected your plan, please scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “Continue” at bottom right.

You will then be asked to enter your credit card information and finalize the payment process. Upon checkout completion, you will automatically be issued a receipt which can be accessed by logging into AppInsights, navigating to "Account" at top right, and then hitting the "Billing" tab in the next screen. You will be defaulted to the "Manage Invoices" pane which is always available if you’re interested in reviewing your AppInsights billing history.

Please note that this check-out flow is only for users who wish to pay by credit card. If you require a pre-issued invoice so you can pay manually via wire or check, please .

Key metrics are only as useful as the actions they motivate among your team. Even with a AppInsights dashboard on your sales floor or in your call center, it can be a challenge to notice when key inflection points or important thresholds have been crossed. That’s why we created our alerts feature! Follow the instructions below to automate an email alert to yourself, or to your team, when specific metric values are hit.

To get started, find the widget on your dashboard that you would like to create an alert for. Hit the gear icon for that specific widget and select “Edit Widget Settings”.

custom data API

You will automatically be brought to the “Data Settings” tab within the Edit Widget Settings window. Scroll down to the bottom and click the “API Access” drop-down to find the unique Stream name identifier for this widget. (Make note of this stream name as you’ll need it for our next step.)

With your Stream name in hand, navigate to the “Alerts” menu which can be found by clicking the main Settings icon within the app (at top right).

Once you’ve opened the Alerts menu, click “Create new” and you will be prompted to enter a name for your alert. Next you’ll need to select a “Metric to monitor” -- this is where you’ll need the widget stream name you identified earlier.

(Notice that every widget from each of your dashboards will be represented in “Metric to monitor” drop-down, so start by identifying the Authentication, then the Metric type, and then the stream name to make things easier!)

Next, specify the “Alert condition” and “Condition threshold” -- these determine what value or inflection point you’d like to monitor and whether you’d like to be alerted when the widget exceeds this value, or drops below it. Add any email contacts you’d like to alert (multiple addresses separated by commas) and hit “Save alert”.

Your alert is now ready to go! Feel free to create as many separate alerts as you’d like. You can even create multiple alerts for the same widget if you want to monitor specific goals being met throughout the course of a week or month.

Please note: you cannot create alerts for widgets that are being populated via our .