Business Intelligence 1.3.0: Transformations, Thresholds, and Health Checks

We’re excited to introduce Business Intelligence 1.3.0, a proof-of-concept release from Volkov Labs laying the groundwork for expansive future growth in the Business Intelligence platform. This update brings:

• User role support in the Alerting panel.
• Threshold color integration for alert ranges.
• Beta support for transformations and multi-frames.
• Enhanced Grafana health check with retry and timeout options.

See it in action:

Business Intelligence 1.3.0 for Grafana

User Roles in the Alerting Panel

The Alerting panel now respects Grafana user roles, tailoring access to actions:

Alert Rules Page

• Admins/Editors: Full access—Info, Pause/Resume, Edit, Delete.
• Viewers: Limited to Info and Pause/Resume.

Action buttons vary by role on the Alert Rules page.

Webhooks Page

• Admins/Editors: All options—Test, Edit, Delete.
• Viewers: Only Test available.

Note

A greyed-out Delete button means the webhook is tied to an active alert rule and can’t be removed.

Webhook actions differ by role.

Threshold Colors for Alerts

The BI Engine now uses Thresholds colors to define allowable data ranges, triggering alerts when values stray outside. Normal ranges require no action, keeping your focus where it matters.

In this example (allowable range: 50-80), three alert records highlight breaches:

• Alert 1: Temperature drops below 40.
• Alert 2: Spikes to 94.7, then dips to 20.4.
• Alert 3: Hits 93.4, then falls to 21.1.

Annotations (light blue areas) mark these events, with gaps reflecting abrupt data shifts. Alerts run periodically, so ongoing breaches extend annotations over time.

Threshold colors guide alert creation.

Transformations and Multi-Frames (Beta)

Alert rules tie to specific dashboards and panels:

Dashboard and panel selection for an alert rule.

Multi-Frames

Now, BI supports multi-frame data sets—alerts apply across all frames from a data source. For example, monitoring three devices:

• Alert triggers when any device (e.g., Device 2) exceeds the range.
• Alert resolves when the last device (e.g., Device 3) returns to normal.

Multi-frame alert example with three devices.

Transformations

Grafana transformations are now in beta. While most should work, the variety means some may need further tuning—stay tuned for updates.

Beta Status

Transformation support is evolving due to Grafana’s extensive options.

Grafana Health Check Enhancements

The BI Engine relies on Grafana, but startup timing can vary. If Grafana lags, the BI Engine might fail its health check and shut down. New retry and timeout parameters prevent this, with a default wait of 5 seconds—customizable as needed.

##
## Service Account
## - Viewer permission is required to access dashboards
## - Editor permission is required to access dashboards and add Annotations
##
GRAFANA_TOKEN=SERVICE-ACCOUNT-TOKEN

##
## Grafana HTTP API
##
GRAFANA_URL=http://grafana:3000

##
## Grafana Health-Check timeout, ms
## Waiting for Grafana availability for (Timeout * Number of Retries / 1000 ) seconds
##
GRAFANA_HEALTH_CHECK_TIMEOUT=1000

##
## Grafana Health-Check number of retries
##
GRAFANA_HEALTH_CHECK_RETRY=5

Getting Started

The Business Intelligence platform uses Docker containers to deliver a modular, scalable solution. Our Getting Started guide provides a detailed setup, integrating Business Intelligence with additional tools to simulate a real-world environment.

Looking for a simpler entry point? Explore the Quick Start section instead.

Tutorial Video

Watch Daria guide you through the installation process step-by-step, then learn how to create your first alert action and link it to an alert rule.

How to Get Started with Business Intelligence Platform for Grafana 2.3.0

Release Notes

Features & Enhancements

• Updated Business Manager and Docker Compose (#6).
• [App] Added role-based feature access.
• [App] Updated ESLint and refactored code.
• [App] Enabled threshold range checks.
• [App] Removed Docker container workflow.
• [App] Refreshed icons and threshold colors.
• [Engine] Added range threshold calculations.
• [Engine] Supported transformations and multi-frames.
• [Engine] Added retry/timeout for Grafana health checks.
• [Engine] Updated ESLint and packages.

We’d Love to Hear From You!

Have feedback or ideas? Get involved:

• Questions, Features, or Bugs: Open a GitHub issue.
• Join the Conversation: Subscribe to our YouTube Channel and share your thoughts in the comments.

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