Business Intelligence 1.6.0: Variables, Prometheus, and Alert History

We’re thrilled to announce Business Intelligence 1.6.0, a pivotal release from Volkov Labs that evolves the Business Intelligence platform from proof-of-concept to a robust development milestone. Key updates include:

• Dashboard variables support for streamlined alerting.
• Prometheus data source integration.
• Built-in Prometheus monitoring.
• Expanded UI functionality.
• New Alert History visualization.

Watch the overview:

Business Intelligence 1.6.0 for Grafana

Dashboard Variables Support

Variables transform alert configuration. Imagine monitoring two similar devices with slightly different CPU thresholds (e.g., 0-2% vs. over 2%). Without variables, you’d need separate rules for each—manageable for a few, but a nightmare for hundreds.

Now, one alert rule with variable-driven Overrides handles it all. Here’s how it looks in a Time Series panel:

Time Series with one series triggering an alert.

And the rule setup with variables:

Single alert rule with multiple thresholds via variables.

Prometheus Data Source

This release ensures variable support for Prometheus, with plans to expand to other popular data sources soon.

Built-In Prometheus Monitoring

Monitor the BI Engine itself with new Prometheus middleware and a dedicated container. This built-in solution collects system health stats, viewable in a pre-built dashboard—perfect for observing your observability system.

BI Engine monitoring dashboard powered by Prometheus.

The BI Engine’s two components provide metrics:

• API Server: engine:3001
• Scheduler: engine:3002

API Server and Scheduler components of BI Engine.

Alert Rules Workflow

Here’s the user-facing workflow, with Prometheus enabling troubleshooting and system reporting:

Conceptual alert workflow from the user’s perspective.

UI Enhancements

Actions Page

Renamed from Webhooks to Actions to align with alerting terminology (Alert rule-Alert record-Alert action).

Annotations

In Edit mode > Action category, the Add Annotations option now lets you attach annotations to a specific panel or the entire dashboard.

Alerting panel with Edit alert drawer.

Event Details

For rules in Alerting or Error states, click Details on an alert card, then the Event Details header to inspect specifics.

Event Details for Alerting and Error states.

Alert History Visualization

A new Alerts History option in the BI Engine data source’s Request parameter lets you display alert history in any visualization panel—like this Table view:

Alert History in a Table visualization.

Getting Started

The Business Intelligence platform uses Docker containers to deliver a modular, scalable solution. Our Quick Start guide provides a simplest setup to get started.

Release Notes

Features & Enhancements in 1.6.0

• Updated BI App and BI Engine (#11).
• [App] Refreshed Prometheus dashboard.
• [App] Made repeated variables multi-select with an “all” option.
• [App] Added grouped statuses.
• [Engine] Implemented execution batching.
• [Engine] Limited migrations to server app.
• [Engine] Skipped annotations for repeat variables without results.
• [Engine] Updated production scripts.

Features & Enhancements in 1.5.0

• [App] Added Prometheus dashboard.
• [App] Showed variable load errors.
• [App] Blocked alert creation without variable values.
• [App] Upgraded to Grafana Utils 1.2.0.
• [Engine] Added mapper service for entity conversion.
• [Engine] Integrated Prometheus middleware.
• [Engine] Failed variable loads if options can’t be queried.
• [Engine] Added redirect support for Home dashboard.
• [Engine] Supported Prometheus for variable options.
• [Engine] Updated License Key and Node to 20.

Features & Enhancements in 1.4.0

• Updated BI App and BI Engine (#10).
• [App] Added variables support.
• [App] Enabled Grafana proxy requests.
• [App] Updated dashboard annotation modes.
• [App] Added License Info tab and evaluation overrides.
• [Engine] Added alert state to annotations.
• [Engine] Supported variables and refactored modules.
• [Engine] Added Grafana proxy, alert checksum, configurable timeouts, License Info, alert history, and evaluation overrides.

We’d Love to Hear From You!

Have feedback or ideas? Get involved:

• Questions, Features, or Bugs: Open a Zendesk ticket for a prompt and dedicated response from our team.
• Join the Conversation: Subscribe to our YouTube Channel and share your thoughts in the comments.

Your input helps us improve, so don’t hesitate to get in touch!