Hello Splunk Community! Welcome to the June edition of Splunk Answers Community Content Calendar! Get ready for this week’s post dedicated to Splunk Dashboards! We're celebrating the power of community by sharing solutions for common dashboard challenges (like panel widths and time range configurations) and spotlighting the invaluable contributions of our Splunk users and experts on the Dashboards & Visualizations board. Dashboard CSS Width setup doesn't work anymore with 9.x version Upgrading to the latest Splunk version (9.x) can bring a host of improvements and new features. However, sometimes updates can introduce unexpected challenges. One issue that some Splunk users have encountered is related to custom CSS styling in classic XML dashboards, specifically affecting panel widths. This issue was brought to light by JulienKVT The Problem: Custom CSS Panel Widths No Longer Working Many Splunk administrators and developers rely on custom CSS to fine-tune the layout and appearance of their dashboards. A common use case is setting specific widths for panels within a row, allowing for a more tailored and visually appealing presentation of data. The intention of the code by JulienKVT is to set #Panel1 to 15% width and #Panel2 to 85% width within the row. However, after upgrading to Splunk 9.x, JulienKVT mentioned that this CSS styling no longer works as expected. Panels revert to their default layouts (e.g., 50/50, 33/33/33), ignoring the custom CSS rules. This issue can be frustrating for users who have carefully crafted their dashboards and rely on specific panel layouts for optimal data visualization. While Splunk's Dashboard Studio offers a more modern approach to dashboard creation, migrating existing dashboards can be a time-consuming and complex task. Many users need a solution that allows them to maintain their existing classic dashboards while still benefiting from the latest Splunk version. The Solution: Replace width with max-width in Your CSS Our contributor Paul_Dixon suggested a solution that involves a minor modification to your existing CSS code. Instead of using the width property, try using max-width instead. The key difference between width and max-width lies in how they're interpreted by the browser. width sets a fixed width for the element, while max-width sets the maximum allowed width. The element can be smaller than the max-width if other constraints apply. In the context of Splunk 9.x dashboards, it's possible that changes in the underlying layout engine are interfering with the width property. By using max-width, you're essentially giving the panel a hint about its desired size, while still allowing it to adapt to other layout constraints. The important tag ensures that this style takes precedence over other conflicting styles. Thanks to our contributor Paul_Dixon for providing a clear solution. Give it a try and let us know in the comments if it works for you! Thanks to the community for sharing this valuable tip! Splunk Dashboard: Combining Time Ranges Splunk dashboards are indispensable for visualizing and analyzing data. Often, you need to tailor your search queries to achieve the precise results you're after. This post was brought to light by Punnu. We will explore a common scenario: using different time ranges for different parts of a query and hiding specific columns from the output. But more importantly, we'll celebrate the power of the Splunk Answers community in finding solutions to even the most complex challenges. The Problem: Dynamic Time Ranges and Column Control Use a dashboard input (time picker) for the initial part of a search query. They wanted users to select a specific time range using a dashboard time picker. Run the remaining part of the query using a different time range (e.g., the entire day). The reasoning was that events triggered during the initial time range might be processed later in the day. Hide specific columns (e.g., message GUID, request time, output time) from the final displayed results. This simplifies the view and focuses on relevant information. The Solution (Partial): Dynamic Time Range Adjustment (and a Community Discovery!) While a complete solution requires a more complex setup, the user Punnu themselves discovered a clever technique for dynamically adjusting the time range based on the current time, thanks to an old post by somesoni2.  Punnu found a solution buried in the archives of Splunk Answers, a testament to the long-lasting contributions of expert users like somesoni2. The solution involves a subsearch to dynamically adjust the time range. There is a wealth of knowledge available on Splunk Answers and this highlights the incredible value of the Splunk community. The Power of Splunk Answers This solution exemplifies the power of the Splunk Answers community. Expert users have generously shared their knowledge and solutions over the years, creating a vast and invaluable resource. The fact that the user was able to find a working solution from 2017 demonstrates the enduring relevance of the information shared on Splunk Answers. Remember to leverage this incredible resource when facing your own Splunk challenges! The answer you need might already be waiting for you on Splunk Answers. Kudos to the Expert Users! We want to give a shout-out to the users like JulienKVT and Punnu who bring these questions to light and the countless expert users who contribute to Splunk Answers like Paul_Dixon and somesoni2. Their dedication to helping others and sharing their expertise makes the Splunk community a truly special place. Because of them, you can often find a solution to almost any Splunk challenge, no matter how complex. These unsung heroes are the backbone of the Splunk ecosystem. Would you like to feature more solutions like this? Reach out @Anam Siddique on Slack in our Splunk Community Slack workspace to highlight your question, answer, or tip in an upcoming Community Content post! 💡 Beyond Splunk Answers, the Splunk Community offers a wealth of valuable resources to deepen your knowledge and connect with other professionals! Here are some great ways to get involved and expand your Splunk expertise: Role-Based Learning Paths: Tailored to help you master various aspects of the Splunk Data Platform and enhance your skills. Splunk Training & Certifications: A fantastic place to connect with like-minded individuals and access top-notch educational content. Community Blogs: Stay up-to-date with the latest news, insights, and updates from the Splunk community. User Groups: Join meetups and connect with other Splunk practitioners in your area. Splunk Community Programs: Get involved in exclusive programs like SplunkTrust and Super Users where you can earn recognition and contribute to the community. And don’t forget, you can connect with Splunk users and experts in real-time by joining the Slack channel. Dive into these resources today and make the most of your Splunk journey! ... View more

Hello Splunk Community! Welcome to another week of fun curated content as a part of our Splunk Answers Community Content Calendar! This week's posts are about Regex extraction, Search & Reporting, and Splunk Enterprise. We will be highlighting some of our Splunk users and experts who contributed in the Splunk Search board. Splunk Community Spotlight: Extracting FQDN from JSON Using Regex Regex can be a tricky beast, especially when you're trying to extract specific values from structured fields like JSON. Fortunately, the Splunk community continues to come together to solve these common challenges. The Challenge Here we're highlighting a helpful interaction from the Splunk Search board on Splunk Answers, where Karthikeya asked for assistance refining a regex pattern to extract a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) from a JSON field. The Solution The solution was simple, effective, and more broadly applicable.  Gcusello explains that regex captures everything after the prefix (such as v-) up until the trailing port number, assigning it to the field fqdn. The solution was also accompanied by a link to Regex101, allowing others to test and validate the expression. This improved version is more readable and reliable across similar patterns. Field extraction is a foundational task in Splunk whether you're indexing logs, building dashboards, or writing alerts. Getting it right the first time helps ensure your data is usable and searchable in meaningful ways. Regex plays a crucial role in this, but without best practices, you may end up with inconsistent results. Thanks to contributors like gcusello, users gain cleaner, more maintainable solutions that benefit the entire community. Splunk Community Spotlight: Joining Data Across Indexes with Field Coalescing In the fast-paced world of network monitoring and security, Splunk users often need to correlate data across multiple indexes. In this week’s Splunk Search board, we’re diving into a great question raised by a MrGlass and how yuanliu and gcusello helped unlock the solution with a clean and efficient approach. The Challenge While trying to locate some data between two indexes, when running the search over a larger time window, the data becomes inconsistent, likely due to the structure of the join and differences in field naming. The Solution Gcusello provides a great solution and yuanliu refines it to help the user. Rather than renaming fields individually or relying on joins (which can break or jumble data across time windows), Both of them offered a streamlined approach using conditional logic to cleanly unify the data. Working with multiple data sources in Splunk is common, especially in environments where network telemetry and authentication logs live in different places. Field normalization using coalesce() ensures your queries remain flexible, efficient, and easier to manage at scale. Key Takeaways Splunk’s community is a powerful learning resource,  from regex optimizations to full-scale deployment strategies. If you’re ever stuck, don't hesitate to ask a question on Splunk Answers, and you might just find a simpler, better way to solve your challenge. 🎉 Shout-Out Big thanks to Karthikeya & MrGlass for raising the issue and gcusello & yuanliu for providing such clean and effective solutions. This is the kind of collaborative problem-solving that makes the Splunk Community thrive! Would you like to feature more solutions like this? Reach out @Anam Siddique on Slack or @Anam on Splunk Answers to highlight your question, answer, or tip in an upcoming Community Content post! 💡 Beyond Splunk Answers, the Splunk Community offers a wealth of valuable resources to deepen your knowledge and connect with other professionals! Here are some great ways to get involved and expand your Splunk expertise: Role-Based Learning Paths: Tailored to help you master various aspects of the Splunk Data Platform and enhance your skills. Splunk Training & Certifications: A fantastic place to connect with like-minded individuals and access top-notch educational content. Community Blogs: Stay up-to-date with the latest news, insights, and updates from the Splunk community. User Groups: Join meetups and connect with other Splunk practitioners in your area. Splunk Community Programs: Get involved in exclusive programs like SplunkTrust and Super Users where you can earn recognition and contribute to the community. And don’t forget, you can connect with Splunk users and experts in real-time by joining the Slack channel. Dive into these resources today and make the most of your Splunk journey! ... View more

Hello Splunk Community! Welcome to the first post of the Splunk Answers Content Calendar 🎉 This week, I'll be spotlighting three standout topics from the #Getting-Data-In board, sharing solutions from our experts and best practices to help you bring data into Splunk more effectively.     Here are some of the most popular topics that caught the community's attention, each one solved with insights and expertise from our Splunk experts! Ensuring Consistent _time Extraction During File Indexing The topic is about event timestamp parsing during indexing in Splunk Enterprise, specifically related to incorrect _time assignments after new events are added to a file. The user @punkle64 wants to make sure that Splunk consistently extracts the correct timestamp from the event data instead of using the file’s modification time. Our brilliant experts helped the user troubleshoot the problem. @PickleRick was able to provide a solution that by removing datetime config from your props.conf, it will fall back to its default timestamp extraction behavior.  Link to the original post          2. Index-Time Routing with Selective Cloning Based on Event Content This question is about log routing and filtering using props.conf and transforms.conf in Splunk Enterprise, specifically: Cloning logs to a distant heavy forwarder (HF), filtering out specific logs, and using index-time routing for selective forwarding and duplication of events. The user @Nicolas2203 is looking for guidance on whether this approach is reliable and correctly implemented. Our experts @livehybrid and @isoutamo  provided some solutions that helped the user.  Explicit cloning, conditional override and cleaner approach using input-level clone and that all events are cloned to both by default.  Link to the original post              3. Splitting JSON Array into multiple events This question is about parsing and event breaking of JSON arrays during data ingestion in Splunk. The user @ws is trying to split a JSON array into multiple distinct events, but Splunk is indexing the entire array as a single event, despite attempts to configure props.conf. Our experts @kiran_panchavat, @PickleRick, and @livehybrid help the user create his own solution by suggesting a props.conf configuration for properly splitting a JSON array into multiple events at index time.  This configuration aims to break the JSON array into multiple distinct events based on a key field, improving parsing and field extraction. Link to the original post Thanks to all our experts @PickleRick @livehybrid @kiran_panchavat and @isoutamo for sharing your Splunk knowledge, guiding users with clarity, and consistently going above and beyond. Your contributions truly make our Splunk Community smarter and more supportive every day! Beyond Splunk Answers, the Splunk Community offers a wealth of valuable resources to deepen your knowledge and connect with other professionals. Here are some great ways to get involved and expand your Splunk expertise: Role-Based Learning Paths: Tailored to help you master various aspects of the Splunk Data Platform and enhance your skills. Splunk Training & Certifications: A fantastic place to connect with like-minded individuals and access top-notch educational content. Community Blogs: Stay up-to-date with the latest news, insights, and updates from the Splunk community. User Groups: Join meetups and connect with other Splunk practitioners in your area. Splunk Community Programs: Get involved in exclusive programs like SplunkTrust, Super Users, and Answers Badges (coming soon!), where you can earn recognition and contribute to the community. And don’t forget, you can connect with Splunk users and experts in real-time by joining the Slack channel. Dive into these resources today and make the most of your Splunk journey! ... View more