Grafana First Dashboard
A dashboard is a collection of panels arranged on a single screen. Building your first dashboard takes five minutes once a data source is connected. This topic walks through every step from a blank screen to a working dashboard with live data.
What a Dashboard Actually Is
Think of a dashboard like a TV wall in a news studio. Each TV screen shows a different channel — weather, stocks, breaking news. In Grafana, each panel is a TV screen and the dashboard is the wall. You decide how many screens appear and what each one shows.
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ SERVER HEALTH DASHBOARD │ ├──────────────────┬──────────────────┬───────────────┤ │ CPU Usage (%) │ Memory Used │ Disk Space │ │ [Line Graph] │ [Gauge Chart] │ [Bar Chart] │ ├──────────────────┴──────────────────┴───────────────┤ │ Network Traffic (bytes/sec) │ │ [Time Series — full width] │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Step 1 – Create a New Dashboard
Click the + icon in the left sidebar and select New Dashboard. Grafana opens an empty canvas with one prompt: Add a new panel.
Step 2 – Add Your First Panel
Click Add visualization. A data source selector appears. Choose the data source you connected in the previous topic — for example, Prometheus. The panel editor opens.
Step 3 – Write a Query
At the bottom of the panel editor, you see the query section. This is where you tell Grafana what data to fetch. For a Prometheus data source, type a simple query:
up
The up metric returns a 1 if a monitored target is running and a 0 if it is down. You will immediately see a line appear in the preview chart above.
For a more interesting graph, try this query that shows CPU usage:
100 - (avg by(instance) (rate(node_cpu_seconds_total{mode="idle"}[5m])) * 100)
Step 4 – Choose a Visualization Type
In the top-right panel of the editor, a dropdown shows the current visualization type. The default is Time series (a line graph). Click it to open the visualization picker and explore options like Stat, Gauge, Bar chart, and Table.
For CPU usage over time, keep it as Time series.
Step 5 – Set the Panel Title
In the right-hand options panel, find the Title field under the Panel options section. Type a clear name such as CPU Usage (%). A good title tells anyone looking at the dashboard exactly what the panel measures.
Step 6 – Apply and Return to Dashboard
Click the Apply button in the top right. The panel editor closes and you return to the dashboard canvas. Your panel now appears on the dashboard.
Step 7 – Resize and Move Panels
Drag the panel by its title bar to reposition it. Drag the bottom-right corner of the panel to resize it. Grafana uses a grid system — panels snap to grid positions automatically.
Drag title bar → moves panel Drag bottom-right corner → resizes panel Grid layout (12 columns wide): ┌───────┬───────┬───────┐ ← 4 cols each │ CPU │ MEM │ DISK │ └───────┴───────┴───────┘ ┌───────────────────────┐ ← 12 cols (full width) │ Network Traffic │ └───────────────────────┘
Step 8 – Add More Panels
Click the Add button in the dashboard toolbar and select Visualization to add another panel. Repeat the process for each metric you want to display. A typical server health dashboard has four to six panels.
Step 9 – Set the Time Range
In the top right of the dashboard, click the time range picker. Select Last 1 hour to show the most recent hour of data. All panels update at once to show data within that window.
Step 10 – Save the Dashboard
Press Ctrl+S or click the Save dashboard icon (floppy disk) in the toolbar. A dialog asks for a name and an optional folder. Type a descriptive name like Server Health Overview and click Save.
Dashboard Rows
You can group panels into rows with collapsible headers. Click Add → Row to insert a row divider. Label the row — for example, CPU Metrics or Network Metrics. Click the row header to collapse all panels inside it, keeping the dashboard tidy when it grows large.
▼ CPU Metrics ← click to collapse/expand [CPU Usage] [CPU Temp] [Load Average] ▶ Network Metrics ← collapsed, panels hidden
Importing a Pre-built Dashboard
You do not always need to build dashboards from scratch. Grafana's website hosts thousands of community dashboards you can import in seconds.
Go to Dashboards → Import. Paste the dashboard ID from grafana.com/grafana/dashboards. For example, Dashboard ID 1860 is the popular Node Exporter Full dashboard that shows detailed Linux server metrics immediately after import.
grafana.com/grafana/dashboards
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│ Copy Dashboard ID: 1860
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Grafana UI → Dashboards → Import → Paste ID → Load → Save
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Instant full-featured dashboard, ready to use