SOURCE_PLUGINS.markdown

Team Dashboard Source Plugins

Data Source Plugins for Team Dashboard

Implement your own Data Source Plugin

You will find example plugins for each type of data source. Use these to get started quickly.

Following an overview of the existing data source types.

Datapoints

The datapoints source supports data for rendering graphs and aggregated values. Following a minimal implementation.

class Example < Sources::Datapoints::Base
  def get(targets, from, to, options = {})
    result = []
    targets.each do |target|
      # retrieve the actual data here
      result << { 'target' => "demo.example1", 'datapoints' => [[1, 123456], [7, 123466]] }
    end
    result
  end

  def available_targets(options = {})
    ["demo.example1", "demo.example2"]
  end

  def supports_target_browsing?
    true
  end
end

Note the datapoints array consists of pairs of number values (y-value and timestamp for the x-value of the graph). This is similar to how Graphite or Ganglia structure their json data for graph data.

For datapoints sources it makes sense to enable users to browse them easily. The widget editor dialog features an autosuggest textfield. it requires the available_targets method to return an array of strings. Additionally supports_target_browsing? should return true.

CI (Continous Integration Server)

The CI data source delivers build status results.

class Demo < Sources::Ci::Base
  def get(options = {})
    {
      :label             => "Demo name",
      :last_build_time   => Time.now.iso8601,
      :last_build_status => 0, # success
      :current_status    => 1  # building
    }
  end
end

Number

The number data source supports a single integer value, an optional label and an optional color.

class Example < Sources::Number::Base
  def get(options = {})
    # retrieve actual data here
    { :value => 115, :label => "example label", :color => "#FFF" }
  end
end

Boolean

The boolean data source supports a single boolean value and an optional label.

class Example < Sources::Boolean::Base
  def get(options = {})
    # retrieve actual data here
    { :value => true, :label => "example label" }
  end
end

Global configuration for your data source

It some cases it makes sense to have a global configuration in the Rails app instead of a separate option as part of the widget configuration.

Let's have a look at how its done for for the Graphite data source. There's an entry in application.rb.

module TeamDashboard
  class Application < Rails::Application
    config.graphite_url = ENV['GRAPHITE_URL']
  end
end

Note that it is set to the environment variable GRAPHITE_URL, which makes it easy to set without changing the rails app directly. Additionally, this configuration can be set in the environment specific config files.

The graphite data source now can easily access the configuration. In order to determine if the data source is configured correctly you have to implement the available? method:

class Graphite < Sources::Datapoints::Base
  def available?
    Rails.configuration.graphite_url.present?
  end
end

Only if available? returns true will the data source be available in the widget editor.

Widget Configuration Params defined in Data Source

Quite often its necessary to add a configuration option in the widget creation step which gets passed along to the data source plugin.

For example the official Jenkins source plugin specifies two additional fields server_url and project:

class Jenkins < Sources::Ci::Base

  def custom_fields
    [
      { :name => "server_url", :title => "Server Url", :mandatory => true },
      { :name => "project", :title => "Project", :mandatory => true },
    ]
  end

  def get(options = {})
    fields = options.fetch(:fields)
    result = request_build_status(fields.fetch(:server_url), fields.fetch(:project))
    {
      :label             => result["fullDisplayName"],
      :last_build_time   => result["lastBuildTime"],
      :last_build_status => status(result["result"]),
      :current_status    => current_status(result["building"])
    }
  end

  # ... more code here
end

Note how the fields method returns an array of configuration params. Each param is specified by a technical name and the title and a boolean flag mandatory as shown above.

Whenever you specify additional fields they will automatically show up in the widget editor dialog and stored in the database for you. Note, that the get method fetches these params again via the options hash. By convention all addition fields are separated from the default fields with the fields namespace.

Contribute

Did you implement your own data source plugin and think they might be useful to others, too? Fork this project and send me a pull request, please!