See everything in one place with Datadog
When you’re running cloud applications, they can get away from you pretty quickly unless you stay on top of them. That’s where Datadog comes into play; centralizing metrics, end-to-end traces, and logs from all of your solutions. It’s a great, easy-to-use solution to the issue of monitoring and ensuring that multiple applications are secure.
Datadog and the Fugo TV Dashboards feature
When you’re all set up with Datadog, and it’s giving you end-to-end monitoring for your cloud applications and solutions, it’s time to put those metrics to work for you. The best way to do that is by displaying your Datadog dashboard on screens in your workplace, whether they’re TV screens or other digital signage. You can do that quickly, easily, and securely with the TV Dashboards feature inside Fugo.
As we were developing our new TV Dashboards Feature, we decided to focus on keeping your data safe and sound. Using third-party dashboard solutions can open up your private business analytics and metrics to hackers. Most solutions require you to store your login credentials on insecure external player devices that can be lost, stolen, or accessed without your permission. Others create a URL on the internet that is accessible to anybody who wants to take a sneak peek at your data.
Fugo is different; your login credentials are kept encrypted, and no data is sent over the internet. Instead, Fugo records your login steps, sends them privately to a secure cloud server, and then has that server log in to your dashboard service. When the dashboard is accessed, the cloud server takes a screenshot and sends it back to Fugo so that we can show the latest version of your dashboard. It’s safe, secure, and fast.
Best Practices for using Datadog with Fugo
We’re going to go over the steps of integrating your Datadog account with the Fugo TV Dashboards feature in just a second, but let’s run through some practices and recommendations before we do that:
1. Create a service account:
We've worked hard to develop the TV dashboards feature so that your sensitive data is completely secure. But as an extra precaution we highly recommend using a 'least privileged' service account when setting up your dashboards - this is usually an account that has read-only permissions for the dashboards you want to display on your screen(s.) You can read more about how to set up a service account with Google here.
2. Have your dashboard URL(s) handy
Because Fugo is going to record & repeat the steps you take to access your dashboard, we want to eliminate any unnecessary steps in the process that will slow Fugo down when accessing your dashboard, such as starting from the homepage of your platform and navigating to your chosen dashboard.
You'll need the URL of your specific dashboard that you want to display on screen ready when you start the process of capturing it with Fugo. Copy that URL and have it ready to paste into Fugo's dashboards step recorder.
Connect your screens to a Fugo account
2.1 Log into your Fugo Account. If you don’t have an account yet, you can start your 14-day free trial here.
Note: TV Dashboards are a part of Fugo's Business Plan. During your free trial, you can create one dashboard. To create any more, you will need to upgrade your plan.
2.2 Make sure your screen(s) are connected to Fugo CMS. If you haven’t connected your screen(s) yet, you can find the instructions for that here.
Connect Fugo to your Datadog dashboard
2.3 Click Dashboards in the top navigation bar to go to your Dashboard library. If you have not created any dashboards yet, this page will be empty.
2.4 Click Create Dashboard to get started. This will take you to the New Dashboard recorder page where you will follow the instructions to capture and preview your dashboard before publishing it to screen.
2.5 You’ll need to name your dashboard. We recommend naming it something easily identifiable that makes sense (for instance, I’ve named mine “Datadog Dashboard”) so that you can find it easily in the future. You’ll also need to enter your dashboard URL for Datadog (I’ve used https://app.datadoghq.eu/dashboard/lists) into the URL bar, and click Go.
💡 As we mentioned above, it’s a good idea to start with your dashboard URL. Not only is it easier and quicker for you after logging in, but in some cases, third-party solutions have all kinds of redirects in place that can cause some hiccups for the Fugo Recorder on the normal login path.
2.6 After clicking Go, Fugo will open up an incognito window using the URL you entered in the last step. You should see the Datadog login screen - go ahead and log in as usual.
❗ Please avoid using the autofill feature when logging in, as the Fugo recorder needs you to type your details in so that it can record everything!
2.7 When you’re logged in, you’ll see your dashboard in the open incognito window. On the right-hand side of the original window, you can see the Fugo Recorder noting down all the steps you’ve taken so far, for it to encrypt and send off to the cloud server for later.
💡 You can use the Eraser from the bottom panel to hide elements of your dashboard (for instance, the “Add Widgets” section of this dashboard. You can also use the Element Screenshot button (to the right of Capture Dashboard) in order to only capture a specific region of the dashboard - you’ll see I’ve done that at the end of this guide.
2.8 The incognito window will close, and you’ll see a preview screen while you wait for the Fugo Recorder to run through the steps and return a screenshot of your dashboard. This can take a few minutes, so don’t worry if it takes longer than you were expecting!
2.10 When your dashboard shows up in the preview area and you’re happy with how everything looks, simply click the Publish button in the bottom right. This will open up the Publishing box, which lets you immediately display your dashboard on existing screens, add a new screen to display your dashboard on, publish your dashboard into existing playlists, or add a new playlist straight from this popup. You can also select Save to come back to this dashboard later.
💡 Note: a dashboard screenshot won’t be updated until it’s published to a currently active screen. So if you're seeing that your dashboard isn't being refreshed, double check to make sure it's published to an active screen.
In essence, our system does not capture dashboards that aren’t being viewed. This helps us ensure efficient use of our dashboard service 🙂
Tips and Tricks for your Datadog Dashboard
Although getting your business dashboards on digital signage in front of your team through Fugo is a great start, it’s not the final step! There’s a lot more that goes into making an effective dashboard, and getting the most out of your data and solutions. Let’s take a look at a few of the main bits to consider when putting your dashboard together:
Pick your Key Performance Indicators. The fastest way to make sure nobody pays attention to your dashboard is by overwhelming your team with a bunch of metrics and information that aren’t relevant to them. When you’re building out your dashboard, see if you can get some time with your team to sit down and figure out what their KPIs are. When you figure out the most important metrics to your team, you should be sparing with any other metrics you add to the dashboard — if you even add any at all. Remember; less is more here, and you can always go back and update your dashboard easily at any point as your team uses the dashboard more and more.
Format your data correctly. Once you’ve determined the metrics that you’re going to show, the next step is to make sure, for each metric, that you’re displaying it in the best way possible. Think about whether your information makes more sense as a line graph, a bar graph, or even a table. It’s worth noting that there’s some conversation about whether Pie Charts are useful at all, just simply due to the way they display data (people aren’t immediately great at reading angles and judging which slices are bigger or smaller). On top of this, think about your decimal points; you probably don’t need ten or eleven decimal points, or really even four or five. If possible, try to limit your decimal points as much as possible, just to keep the amount of info on-screen to a minimum!
Colour Coordinate. Green means go, right? Most people associate green with positive things, so if you’re representing a percentage decrease or a negative metric, it probably doesn’t make a lot of sense to highlight it in green. You should be aiming to help your team out by giving them a general idea of how things are going by colour coordinating your dashboard as much as possible. Ideally, you should also use neutral colours where possible, keeping everything easy to read from a distance, and easy on the eyes up-close — which means no bright blue text on bright red backgrounds!
Datadog is certainly a powerful solution for your monitoring and security - but they also have a super extensive Docs section that covers all kinds of different integrations, as well as having general instructions about the API, a developer guide, and security advice.
Hopefully, this guide has answered all your questions about integrating Datadog with Fugo - but if not, please drop a message through to our helpful support team at support@fugo.ai.