## What is Grafana

Grafana is a powerful open-source platform used for monitoring, visualisation and analytics. It allows you to create customisable dashboards with charts, visualisations and alerts to further explore data from various data sources.

## Installation

### Install Grafana

First you need to have Grafana installed. If you don't yet have it, please visit: <https://grafana.com/get> and select self-managed, then follow the instructions on how to download and install.

(Please note: At this time Grafana Cloud is not supported)

### Install Bitmovin Grafana Plugin

To install the 'Bitmovin Grafana plugin', so you can use the Bitmovin Analytics service as a data source in your Grafana dashboard, use the following command on your grafana server:

You will also need to allow unsigned plugins to run. To do this set `allow_loading_unsigned_plugins = bitmovin-analytics-datasource` in the `grafana.ini` file.

Then, simply restart your grafana deployment, using `service grafana-server restart`, or if you are using docker, restart the container using `docker restart YOUR_GRAFANA_CONTAINER_NAME`.

## Configuration

Once the plugin has been installed successfully, you can add Bitmovin Analytics as a new `Data Source` to your deployment. Go to your Data Source Configuration overview at <https://your-grafana-domain.com:3000/datasources/new> (Configuration => Data Sources => Add new Data Source).

Enter your `Bitmovin API Key` in the `Api Key` field (required). You can retrieve your Bitmovin API Key from within your account settings in the [Bitmovin Dashboard](🔗).

All the other fields will be filled automatically.

## Usage Examples

### Graph View

Add a new graph to your dashboard and select `Bitmovin Analytics` as a Data Source. Then you will be presented with an editor to build your analytics query for your Bitmovin Analytics account. The result of that query will be used for the view. The editor works similar to our Bitmovin Analytics [API Explorer](🔗) which is available in our dashboard and our [JavaScript API Client](🔗).

### Other Graph types

As Grafana is capable to render multiple data sets in one graph, you can easily combine the results of two or more analytics queries:

You can also list query results as a table, e.g. to get a quick overview about the top browser usages.

### Example Grafana Dashboard

For a demo see the `example_dashboard.json` in our [Github repository](🔗). Configure the datasource with your Api Key and select a license key in each panel.