Getting Started

Introduction

Grafana

Your mSupply Dashboard uses Grafana, an open source visualisation tool that is linked to your mSupply data. This User Guide contains external links to Grafana information pages to explain various concepts and how to edit your current dashboard and create new dashboards.

Dashboards and Panels

Each Dashboard is composed of editable Panels arranged on a grid. The panels are separated by rows and can be dragged-and-dropped to a different location on the grid. Each panel queries your mSupply data to give you information in a visual form (graph, table etc).

Store login permissions to determine data visibility

The dashboards can be configured such that data visibility is controlled according to the store login permissions of the user. This can be an efficient way of managing dashboards. Instead of having a large range of very similar dashboards where the only difference between them is the user / store who's data is visible, you can have just one dashboard, where different users will see data according to the stores which they have permission to log in to.

Flexibility

You can view and share data from your dashboard, change the appearance and type of data the panels in your dashboard show, and create new dashboards customised to suit your needs.

For a detailed overview refer to Grafana Dashboard Concepts

Setting up Users

You can login to the dashboard using your current mSupply login. An account is created for you automatically in the grafana system with standard viewer-level permissions. If you are to have an editor or administrator role, then Sustainable Solutions, or another administrative user, can set that up for you after you have logged in for the first time.

The mSupply user must be configured to: Login as a Desktop user. As at 2021-01-01, it is not necessary to have permission to Use the Dashboard, as that applies to the mSupply Legacy Web Dashboard. Desktop user has Active status enabled. Have a default store assigned to it. Email ID should be entered to filter data based on Logged in store. Other than these, no other special configuration of the mSupply user account is required.
Valid Grafana user names are more restrictive than mSupply. For example, if the mSupply user name contains a hyphen (-) then Grafana will not accept that user name. John Doe is valid John-Doe is not valid Users may need to have their mSupply username, which was working perfectly, amended in order for them to be able to log in to the Dashboard.

Logging In

Users log in by entering the URL address of dashboard on a web browser.

The oauth (mSupply login) app requires something that Internet Explorer doesn't support. You must use another browser to log in to the mSupply dashboards. Also, just STOP USING Internet Explorer - it's dangerous!
When you log in you may see a suite of dashboards similar to the example below.

This example is showing the 'Overview' Dashboard.
It is set to a Time Range of 'Previous year'
This Dashboard example contains six Panels:

Total stock value

Stock status

Stock value by store

Transactions per store

Months of stock by region

Stock history over time by store

Let's walk through the navigation menus

1. Overview - This is the dashboard you are viewing. Clicking on this opens a window to view your other dashboards. 2. Dashboards menu - Home, Manage dashboards, Playlists, Snapshots 3. User menu - Preferences, change password, sign out 4. Help menu - Keyboard shortcuts, Community site, Grafana documentation
5. Mark as Favourite 6. Share Dashboard - via snapshot or link 7. Cycle View Mode 8. Time Range - control the time period for your dashboard 9. Search 10. Refresh

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