Looking for a method to display process progress in a dashboard

[jwinderDDS]

I have a process that I need to create a dashboard to monitor. The process logs to a file and contains easily searchable segment identifiers, such as:

Process started
Download started
bla
bla
Download completed
Import started
bla
bla
bla
Import completed
etc
etc

What is the best method of graphically displaying this on a dashboard? My thoughts were either a progress bar, or as a table listing each major step and an image that changes indicating the step's state (not started, running, finished). I haven't been able to figure out either one, although I got a lot closer on the table.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you in advance,

Jeremy

[MuS · Accepted solution]

Hi jwinderDDS,

First get this messages into a field (let's say progress) using field extractions, see the docs for more details http://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/6.3.2/Knowledge/ExtractfieldsinteractivelywithIFX
Next create a automatic lookup base on this new field using a lookup table like this:

progress,state
Process started,started
Download started,running
Download completed,running
Import started,running
Import completed,finished

See the docs for more details on lookups and how they work http://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/6.3.2/Knowledge/Addfieldsfromexternaldatasources

Once this is setup you can display the state field in your dashboard.

Hope this helps to get you started ...

cheers, MuS

[jwinderDDS]

Thank you!

After creating dummy events using https://answers.splunk.com/answers/47493/how-do-you-add-dummy-events-to-a-search-result.html I was able to create a table view that refreshes every 30 seconds that updates a column with each step's current state.