Heatmap Widget

Use a heatmap to visualize data intensity across two dimensions and quickly identify high-activity areas or trends.

Overview

A heatmap displays the intensity of data values using color. Each cell represents the aggregated value of data at the intersection of 2 dimensions—such as time × service, endpoint × latency, or region × status code. This makes it easy to identify spikes, clusters, and patterns that might be hard to see in a line or bar chart.

Use heatmaps when you need to:

• Visualize distribution or density across two dimensions.
• Quickly catch hotspots, trends, and anomalies over time or by category.
• Drill from events directly into logs, traces, or metrics for deeper analysis.

Create a heatmap

1. In your dashboard, select Add Widget.
2. Drag and drop the Heatmap widget into your dashboard.

3. In the Query Builder, use the Function panel to group and aggregate your data for the heatmap.

   • In Group by, select up to 5 categories or fields you want to appear on the X and Y axes. (for example, subsystem, severity, region).
   • Select an aggregation function such as Count, Sum, or Average to calculate the value represented by color intensity.

   Note

   To control which field appears on the X-axis and which on the Y-axis, open the Settings panel and select Switch Axis, or drag and assign parameters directly to each axis.

4. (Optional) Add filters or time range adjustments.

5. Select Save changes to add the widget to your dashboard.

Define widget parameters

Configure your heatmap’s appearance and data display options in the widget’s Settings panel. Use these parameters to control the display, color, and labeling of values across the visualization.

Visual management

In the Settings panel, expand GENERAL SETTINGS to adjust the heatmap axis data, color display and density in VISUAL MANAGEMENT.

• Swap axes: Switch the X and Y axes for a different layout of the same data.
• Show cell values: Toggle to overlay numeric values inside each cell. Useful where cells are larger and readable.
• Color palette: Select a predefined color palette to represent data intensity. You can reverse the color order (light → dark or dark → light).
• Legend scale: Select the color scheme using the legend configuration. It maps values from light → dark by default. Use Min and Max thresholds to control the color scale range and improve readability for data with wide or uneven distributions.
• Scale type: Choose between:
  • Linear (default): Colors change evenly across values.
  • Logarithmic: Applies globally to the Z-access (color-intensity bar) for datasets with wide value ranges.

Tooltip management

Customize what information appears when you hover over a Heatmap cell. By default, the tooltip shows a simple value such as value = 3.

• Text message: Define the message or value displayed when hovering over a cell. This can include the X- and Y-axis attributes and the aggregated value (Z-axis).

  Note

  To show cell values in your hover tooltip, use {{ }} syntax in the Text message field.

  As you type, a dropdown lists available dynamic fields such as the aggregation result or axis labels.

  Use {{count_0}} to display the cell's count value in the tooltip.

• Labels: Select which labels or attributes to include in the tooltip (for example, service, category, or application).

Use this field to control how detailed the hover tooltip appears, especially in dense Heatmaps.

Units management

• Units: Define a display unit for the aggregated value, such as ms, %, or count.
• Decimals: Select the maximum number of decimal places to display.
• Precision: Toggle to show full unrounded values instead of rounded ones.
• Min–max limits: Define minimum and maximum values for the color scale.

Custom actions

Use Custom Actions to trigger workflows directly from any cell in your heatmap. Create actions with custom links to carry the cell’s context-such as field values, filters, and time range—so you can open other dashboards or trigger external systems with that same context.

To add a custom action, select in the CUSTOM ACTIONS section of the Settings panel, then name and enter a target URL.

After you create the action, selecting a cell in the heatmap opens a quick actions menu that includes your custom action.

Use quick actions

Select a cell to open the context menu:

• Open Explore: Opens the logs or traces Explore view with filters from the selected cell.
• Filter in: Add the cell’s data and time filters to the dashboard query.
• Filter out: Exclude the cell’s data from the dashboard query.
• Copy name: Copy the cell label or key=value pair.

Performance and best practices

• Keep under 2,000 data rows (total number of X×Y combinations returned by the query) for responsive visualization. If your query returns more, increase the time range or reduce the number of Group By fields.
• Use no more than 5 grouping fields per widget; additional fields might affect readability and performance.
• Avoid grouping by high-cardinality labels like user_id.
• Limit grouping fields to avoid overcrowded visualization results.

Example use cases

Errors over time by service

• Visualize error spikes over time.
• X-axis: Timestamp
• Y-axis: System or service
• Filter: Limit data to error events
• Value: Count of errors (drives color intensity)

Use to determine where and when errors occur across your system.

Status codes by region

• Compare response patterns across regions to detect latency errors.
• X-axis: Region
• Y-axis: Status code
• Value: HTTP-request count (drives color intensity)

Shows whether certain regions experience more failures or unusual status patterns.

Related resources

• Custom actions - Add drilldowns from cells to other features or open external workspaces.
• Legend configuration for widgets — Manage color legends and palettes.
• Annotations — Overlay deployments or recurring events on time-based charts.