Version: NG-3.2

Smart-Frame Studio

Overview

Smart Frames provide a flexible framework for building reusable operational views that bring together observability data, visualizations, insights, and navigation workflows within a single interface. They enable teams to organize relevant monitoring and investigation components into focused workspaces that support specific operational, troubleshooting, and analytical use cases. A Smart Frame can contain multiple widgets such as visualizations, KPI cards, trend charts, tables, service maps, text content, insight cards, and navigation links. By combining these components into a single view, Smart Frames help users access the information required for monitoring and investigation without navigating across multiple dashboards or pages.

For example, an e-commerce operations team can create a Smart Frame that displays order transaction success rates, payment gateway latency, application health KPIs, database performance metrics, and service dependency maps in a single workspace. During an incident, operators can quickly identify whether a slowdown is caused by the application, database, or an external payment service without switching between multiple monitoring screens. Similarly, an infrastructure team can build a Smart Frame that combines server utilization metrics, network performance trends, alert summaries, and troubleshooting links to monitor the health of a production environment from a single view.

Smart Frames can be created and managed using Smart Frame Studio and accessed through the Smart Frames workspace. Once configured, they can be reused across teams and operational workflows, providing a consistent way to analyze application, infrastructure, service, database, and observability data.

When to Use This Feature

Operational teams often need to analyze data from multiple sources, review different metrics, investigate anomalies, and navigate between several monitoring views before identifying the root cause of an issue. This process can be time-consuming when information is scattered across multiple dashboards and tools. Smart Frames address this challenge by providing a consolidated operational workspace where relevant information can be organized and accessed from a single location.

Smart Frames help users:

Combine multiple observability views into a single operational workspace.
Present metrics, trends, KPIs, service relationships, and analytical insights together.
Provide contextual information using text widgets and insight cards.
Enable consistent monitoring experiences for common operational use cases.
Simplify troubleshooting by reducing the need to switch between multiple dashboards.
Create guided investigation workflows using Smart-Frame Links and drill-down interactions.
Reuse configured views across teams and operational processes.
Improve visibility into application, infrastructure, service, and transaction behavior.

By consolidating operational information into focused workspaces, Smart Frames help users move from monitoring to investigation more efficiently.

Smart Frame Lifecycle

The Smart Frame workflow typically consists of the following activities:

Create the Smart Frame in Smart Frame Studio.
Configure widgets and visualizations.
Add Smart Frame-level filters.
Review and validate the configuration.
Save the Smart Frame.
Access the Smart Frame from the Smart Frames workspace.
Use filters, panel actions, and interactions to analyze data.
Modify and enhance the Smart Frame as operational requirements evolve.

This lifecycle enables Smart Frames to serve as reusable operational workspaces that evolve alongside monitoring, troubleshooting, and observability requirements.

Smart Frames and Smart Frame Studio

Smart Frames and Smart Frame Studio work together to provide a complete framework for creating, managing, and using operational dashboards.

Smart Frames

Smart Frames are the end-user dashboards that combine visualizations, insights, filters, text widgets, navigation links, and other components into a single operational workspace. They are designed to provide focused views for specific monitoring, troubleshooting, and analytical use cases.
Users can access Smart Frames from the Smart Frames workspace, where they can view available Smart Frames, apply filters, interact with widgets, analyze metrics, and investigate operational issues.