What's New in SquaredUp DS for Azure

SquaredUp DS for Azure came to its end-of-life on 26th September 2024 and is no longer maintained. Existing customers can still renew and support will continue until further notice.

We recommend that you sign up to SquaredUp Cloud. If you have yet to sign up, create a free account here and find out more here.

What's New in v5.7

SquaredUp DS for Azure v5.7 includes the following new features:

  • Timeframes – major enhancements
  • Line Graph tile – major enhancements
  • Recycle Bin
  • Many more enhancements

Timeframes – Major Enhancements

A much-requested set of improvements bring new control over the dashboard and tile timeframes. Choose a very specific date/time range on a Performance tile, or perform some analysis on your alerts by looking at various time ranges. These are some of the use cases that the timeframe improvements now enable. Specifically:

- A greater range of dashboard timeframes

- A calendar picker on Performance tiles

- User-friendly date/time picker in Connect tiles to inherit dashboard timeframes e.g. to insert in a Web API header, or within a PowerShell or SQL script.

See Timeframes for tiles

Line Graph tile – Major Enhancements

Several improvements aim to strengthen the capabilities of Line Graphs. Display a threshold line and a red area of concern to quickly spot out-of-bound metrics. The x-axis now draws future dates as well as up to the last datetime point.

See How to use the Performance tile

Recycle Bin

Any deleted dashboards and perspectives now end up in the new Recycle Bin. An administrator can see who deleted dashboards and perspectives and when, then take action: restore or permanently delete.

See Recycle Bin

Many more enhancements

  • Sparkline color matching
  • Each user's last login time on the Named User list
  • Improvements to Alert tile date columns
  • Donut legend is optionally scrollable to fix tile height
  • and more...

See Release Notes for SquaredUp DS for Azure

Download now & more information

To get started see How to install SquaredUp DS for Azure using the installer

Get the latest version of SquaredUp DS for Azure

Read the Release Notes for SquaredUp DS for Azure for details on other improvements in this release.

If you have an earlier version of DS for Azure already installed, then the installer will upgrade your installation, see How to upgrade SquaredUp DS for Azure

What's New in v5.6

SquaredUp DS for Azure v5.6 includes the following new features:

  • Option to limit the number of objects returned (Top n) in the Status tile
  • Option to wrap sub-label in the Status tile
  • Allow API query parameters to be set at provider level

See Release Notes for SquaredUp DS for Azure

What's New in v5.5

SquaredUp DS for Azure v5.5 includes the following new features:

  • Adjustable dashboard refresh interval
  • Many more enhancements

Adjustable dashboard refresh interval

A new dashboard setting lets you set the refresh interval for a given dashboard and its Open Access version. Whether you need to reduce the load on your external data, or an API comes with an access cost, you can increase the refresh interval in increments, up to 6 hours. You can also decrease the interval down to 30 seconds on any given dashboard if you need to see the data more often.

See How to create a dashboard - Dashboard Settings

Many more enhancements

What's New in v5.4

SquaredUp DS for Azure v5.4 includes the following new features:

  • New visualization: Surface tile
  • New data source: ODBC
  • Updated Grid tile: major enhancements

New visualization: Surface tile

Overlay your most important Azure metrics over any image background (e.g. a world map, an architecture diagram, a picture from your diagramming tool like Visio). Unleash your creativity and share stunning dashboards with your operation centers and stakeholders or display them on wall screens across your organization. Check out the 5.4 release webinar for inspiration!

See How to use the Surface tile.

New data source: ODBC

The new ODBC data source lets you instantly visualize any data from virtually any database. From Oracle, PostGre, MySQL to many more, you can now dashboard your most important metrics directly from your ODBC databases using a dynamic SQL query.

See How to use the SQL tile

Updated Grid tile: major enhancements

Unlock your grid tiles! Breeze through your logs and alerts with the ability to sort, search and filter. Optimise the look of your dashboard tables for any screens by setting the zoom/font size, column width and improved text wrap. Available for any Grid tiles including Azure Monitor Alerts.

For example see How to use the Web API tile

What's New in v5.3

SquaredUp DS for Azure v5.3 includes the following new features:

  • Community Dashboards: Sharing and Importing
  • New visualization: Status Image
  • Default dashboard timeframe
  • Scalar: conditional colors
  • Donut: display improvements

Community Dashboards: Sharing and Importing

The Community Dashboards website has been completely redesigned to include any dashboard submitted by our community. Check out some of our most popular dashboards (VMWare, Azure DevOps, and more) and import them directly in your own instance of SquaredUp DS for Azure.

Be a community hero! Export your own dashboards to our community using the new one-click export.

See Dashboard Packs

New visualization: Status Image

Visualize the status of what’s important to you, pinpoint a problem more quickly and accurately, and share your complex metrics into simple and compelling dashboards for your stakeholders. Thanks to the new Status Image visualization, you can overlay status icons from any external data sources on top of any images of your choice (e.g. a world map, a data center layout, a picture from your diagramming tool like Visio). Statuses can be retrieved and calculated from any data sources (Web API, PowerShell script, Splunk, Elasticsearch, etc) thanks to our intuitive tile designer.

Default dashboard timeframe

Set the default timeframe of your dashboard so that you and anyone you have shared the dashboard with Open Access can always see the dashboard in its most relevant light depending on its purpose and target audience. Set it to 30 days or longer for an application SLA dashboard shared with your stakeholders, or 1 hour for your root cause analysis dashboard. Timeframes range from 1 hour to 12 months.

See Timeframes for tiles

Scalar: conditional colors

Add impact to your key metrics with conditional colors for scalar visualizations. Available for any Azure metrics or data point from your external data sources. Use the intuitive logic builder to create custom conditions that will trigger your scalar visualization to change color. Choose from a range of colors with the option to highlight the background or the text. Also added support for web links so you can drill out to the corresponding tool to see more details about your metric.

Donut: display improvements

Include the ability to map a specific color to a specific segment/legend of the donut, show as percentage and sorting by value or legend. Note: Status tiles only support sorting, Alert and ServiceNow tiles only support percentage.

What's New in v5.2

SquaredUp DS for Azure v5.2 includes the following new features:

  • PowerShell tile enhancements
  • New visualizations for Splunk
  • Public GitHub Samples repository
  • Various security improvements

PowerShell enhancements

The hugely popular PowerShell visualization tiles have been enhanced in this release to provide script execution controls and security configuration:

• Create your own Run As accounts for improved security.

• Configure script execution interval to independently control the load on your external data sources.

• All visualization scripts now run inside their own child process for increased robustness, with the ability to choose the execution environment (.NET Framework or .NET Core) for each script independently depending on the version of PowerShell your script is written.

See How to use the PowerShell tile

New Splunk visualizations

The Splunk tile now includes a full range of visualizations: Bar Graph, Donut, Line Graph, Scalar, Sparklines, Grid, Status Icons and Blocks.

See How to use the Splunk tile

GitHub Samples

A new public GitHub repository has been published, that contains sample dashboards and scripts, is now available and accessible from within the SquaredUp DS application. The GitHub repository is opened to contributions from the community. Browse the repository for dashboard ideas and various scripts to help you make the most of SquaredUp DS. From SolarWinds and Log Analytics dashboards to purpose-built SQL and PowerShell scripts, be sure to take a look at the growing list of samples and contribute your own creations!

See GitHub Samples repository

Security Improvements

A number of security improvements have been made in this release, following our regular independent security review and penetration test. Best practices for secure deployment of SquaredUp DS have been updated.

See Best Practices for Security.

What's New in v5.1

SquaredUp DS for Azure v5.1 includes the following new features:

  • Two new data integrations: Splunk and Elasticsearch
  • PowerShell tile: visualize any metrics
  • Status visualizations for external data sources
  • New visualizations for the SQL tile

New data integrations: Splunk and Elasticsearch

The new Splunk and Elasticsearch data integrations provide a consistent dashboarding experience to pro-actively visualize your log data. An intuitive point-and-click configuration wizard lets you import and visualize your saved queries from Splunk or Elasticsearch. Paste any query or write your own query in the Query DSL or SPL language. Queries support contextual variables so you can visualize your Splunk or Elasticsearch data dynamically on Azure perspectives.

See How to use the Elasticsearch tile and How to use the Splunk tile

New PowerShell tile to visualize any metrics

Available sample, with no separate configuration required, PowerShell visualizations let you connect to any data sources, display any metrics or build custom metrics on the fly. PowerShell scripting is incredibly powerful, and the possibilities in SquaredUp DS are endless (e.g. correlate and aggregate results from multiple APIs, visualize local log files, and more!).

Leverage PowerShell modules to visualize performance metrics that are not easily available via an API (e.g. VMWare). Create your own profiles to store any PowerShell script that you want to execute across different tiles as the first part of your script, such as connection scripts to 3rd party tools, or to load a PowerShell module.

See How to use the PowerShell tile

New status visualizations for external data sources

Beautiful status visualizations provide an at-a-glance view of your most essential metrics to help turn complex metrics into easy to consume dashboards for stakeholders. The new status visualizations are available for most data sources (e.g. Web API, PowerShell, SQL, Log Analytics, Splunk, Elasticsearch). They are configurable both in terms of look and feel (e.g. blocks/list, dynamic labels, etc) and logic. Use the status logic to easily map a status field from your data source, combine multiple values from your data sources, and add custom calculations to generate your own statuses. Click to drill out to the corresponding object in your external tool.

New visualizations for the SQL tile

The SQL tile now includes the full suite of visualizations: Bar Graph, Donut, Line Graph, Scalar, Sparklines, Grid, Status Icons and Blocks.

How to use the SQL tile

What's New in v5.0

SquaredUp DS for Azure v5.0 includes the following new features:

  • Major overhaul of the dashboard designer experience
  • New Open Access
  • Improved Web API visualizations and configuration
  • Refreshed visual experience

Major overhaul of the dashboard designer experience

Take real control of your layouts, creating rich dashboards easily. Use the new pre-built templates to quickly add a layout, which you can adjust as required. New controls to easily add rows and tiles anywhere on the dashboard. Add new columns to the right or left which will scale the width of the tiles evenly. Split a tile in two to create a nested layout. Other improvements include the ability to drag & drop tiles more easily and better vertical resizing.

How to use the dashboard designer (v5)

New Open Access

Open Access shared dashboards now include simplified interactivity. You can now drill down to access more information with a named user license. Open Access dashboards work seamlessly on all devices, including mobile. Major improvements to the reliability of Open Access including self-healing capabilities and improved scaling and performance.

Sharing Dashboards with anyone - Open Access

Improved Web API visualizations and configuration

Add more context to SCOM dashboards with our new Web API visualizations for your external data sources. New visualizations include the bar chart, donut, line graphs and sparklines. New configuration options include the ability to see the response data, mustache picker options and data mapping capabilities for the new visualizations.

How to use the Web API tile

Refreshed visual experience

Better color contrasts in your visualizations, a new range of vibrant heatmap colors, a darker dark mode, and a more modern feel all round.

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