01 Dashboard Organisation

Organize and structure dashboards in Grafana.

As your dashboard grows with more panels, good organization becomes increasingly important. In this tutorial you will learn the key tools for keeping dashboards clear and easy to navigate:

What you will learn

• Group panels logically with rows and collapse them

• Link dashboards to each other

• Use folders to manage dashboard collections

• Use dashboard settings and versioning

Prerequisites

• Completed Part 1 and Part 2 of the tutorials

• At least one dashboard with multiple panels

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Rows

Rows are horizontal containers that group related panels under a shared heading. They can be collapsed to hide panels.

Add a row

1. In edit mode, click Add in the top navigation

2. Select Row

3. Drag panels below the row to assign them to that section

Change the row title

Click the row title, then click the gear icon to configure the title and other options.

Collapsible rows

Click the arrow next to the row title to collapse or expand the panels inside it. Collapsed panels are not rendered, which speeds up page loading.

Recommended structure

Section	Content
Top (expanded)	Summary KPIs, status, alerts
Middle rows	Detailed time series, process parameters
Bottom rows (collapsed)	Historical data, less frequently needed information

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Dashboard links

Links help users navigate between related dashboards.

Add dashboard links

1. Open the dashboard settings (gear icon)

2. Select the Links tab

3. Click + New link

1. Configure the link:

Setting	Description
Type	Dashboard or Link (URL)
Title	Display text
Include current time range	Pass the time selection to the target
Include current template variables	Pass variable values to the target
Open in new tab	Open the link in a new browser tab

Links appear in the dashboard header:

Drilldown links in panels

Create links that appear when clicking on data points:

1. Edit the panel

2. In the sidebar, find the Data links section

3. Click Add link

You can use variables in the URL, for example ${__data.fields.machine}, to navigate to the correct detail dashboard based on context.

Link strategy

Build a navigation hierarchy so that users can intuitively switch between detail and overview levels:

Site overview
  └── Hall overview
        └── Machine dashboard
              └── Detailed analysis

Each level links to the next via a dashboard link. Enable Include current time range and Include current template variables so that the time selection and filter values are preserved when navigating.

For more details on dashboard links and drilldown links, see the Grafana documentation.

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Folders and permissions

Folders organize dashboards in the Grafana sidebar. The folder structure can mirror the navigation hierarchy of your dashboard links.

1. Go to Dashboards in the main menu

2. Click New, then New folder

Recommended folder structure

Folder	Content
Overview	Summary dashboards, KPI overview
Production	Machine monitoring, throughput
Quality	Quality metrics, deviation tracking
Maintenance	Machine health, alerts
Development	Work-in-progress dashboards

Create a personal folder (for example with your name) for drafts and experiments. Under Folder settings > Permissions you can make the folder invisible to others.

Permissions

Under Folder settings > Permissions you control who can view or edit dashboards in a folder. Assign Viewer or Editor roles to users or teams.

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Dashboard settings and versioning

General settings

Open the dashboard settings via the gear icon in the top navigation:

Setting	Description
Name	Dashboard title
Tags	Searchable labels
Timezone	Browser, UTC, or a specific timezone
Auto refresh	Default refresh interval
Editable	Allow editing (disable for view-only)

Versioning

Grafana automatically saves dashboard versions. Under Versions in the dashboard settings you can:

• View saved versions with timestamps

• Compare two versions (JSON diff)

• Restore previous versions

Use meaningful commit messages when saving to keep track of changes.

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Tips

• Dashboard size: Shopfloor displays should fit without scrolling (1-2 screens). Analysis dashboards can be longer with collapsible rows.

• Naming conventions: Use consistent patterns, for example "[Area] - [Topic]" or "[Machine] - [Detail level]".

• Grid system: Grafana uses 24 columns. Use consistent widths: 24 (full), 12 (half), 8 (third), 6 (quarter).

• Copy panels: Panel title > More > Duplicate creates a copy in the same dashboard. With Copy and Paste panel you can also copy panels across dashboards.

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Next steps

• Transformations - Transform and combine data

• Introduction to the ENLYZE API - API-based dashboards