One really cool plugin for Grafana is the FlowCharting Panel. https://grafana.com/grafana/plugins/agenty-flowcharting-panel/

One easy way to define it is to make ‘live’ draw.io diagrams.

https://www.factry.io/blog/tutorial-using-the-grafana-flowchart-plugin-to-create-a-process-diagram/

(This is just another blog doing some similar stuff)

Follow along for my noodling.

First get ye to some docker.

To have some data to query lets spin up a postgres container (https://hevodata.com/learn/docker-postgresql/)

docker pull postgres

docker run --name postgresql -e POSTGRES_USER=myusername -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=mypassword -p 5432:5432 -v /data:/var/lib/postgresql/data -d postgres

I went with easy defaults.

Now that postgres is running lets grab its ip address

docker inspect -f ‘{{range.NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}’ postgresql

Record that for use later -> In my case 172.17.0.2

Next fire up grafana with the flowchart plugin

Docker pull grafana/Grafana-oss

docker run -d -p 3000:3000 –name=grafana -e “GF_INSTALL_PLUGINS=agenty-flowcharting-panel” grafana/grafana-oss

—

Let’s create a simple table for some playing

Fire up dbeaver or some other sql tool and sign into local host port 5432 with myusername and myuserpassword

CREATE TABLE public.robotevents (

       eventid int8 NOT NULL GENERATED BY DEFAULT AS IDENTITY,

       eventtypeid int4 NOT NULL,

       eventvalue int4 NOT NULL,

       createdon timestamptz NOT NULL

);

So we are going to pretend we have a little robot that goes around a factory and stops in four places. When it gets to location 1 it is going to write an event type id of 1. At second 2 and so forth

insert into public.robotevents (eventtypeid,eventvalue,createdon) values (1,20,now())

—

Ok, navigate to http://localhost:3000/ and you should see the grafana login

Login with admin, admin

Ok, we need to first connect a datasource. Go to configuration, datasources, and add PostgresSQL

Use the host ip that we retrieved up above from docker for the postgres container

Press Save and Test and you should get

Next, lets make a new dashboard

Then we want to edit the query options like below

Then hit the Edit SQL so we can modify the sql a bit

I’m converting it to text so that we can use a comparison on it in the flowchart plugin

SELECT

  createdon AS “time”,

  eventtypeid::text eventstring

FROM robotevents

WHERE

  $__timeFilter(createdon)

ORDER BY 1

Then change your viz to FlowCharting

It opens with a default draw.io image, lets edit it and create our own. Click Edit Draw

I delete the default stuff and then copy an image of a ‘shop floor’

I then create four squares to represent the four positions the robot can be in

Now for the mapping. Edit the created rule, and name it 1

In apply to metrics if you delete everything there it gives you a picklist, choose event string. Change the type to string change the pattern to 1

Now scroll down to Event/Animation Mappings

Create the first event, click the sidewise 8 link button and choose your first square (this helps you identify the id of objects)

The When in this case is When Level 0 which is set up above for a pattern match of 1

So when Level 0 occurs and a pattern match of 1

This basically will turn the square (id of 33) 100 Opacity and the others squares off.

Clone this rule and name it 2 and use the down arrow to have it occur after 1

Change the threshold to 2

And modify the on and off logic so that the 2^nd square is visible and the others and invisible.

Hit save and apply.

Also, reload the entire screen of the dashboard (it seems to need a hardreload to register changes)

Do this again for 3 and 4.

Now you can send eventtypeid’s of 1,2,3,4 and watch as the dashboard moves the square around.

insert into public.robotevents (eventtypeid,eventvalue,createdon) values (2,20,now())

Tada, your robot friend moves around