grafana/docs/sources/datasources/azuremonitor/template-variables.md

aliases	description	keywords	title	weight
/docs/grafana/latest/datasources/azuremonitor/template-variables/	Using template variables with Azure Monitor in Grafana	grafana microsoft azure monitor application insights log analytics guide	Azure Monitor template variables	2

Template variables

Instead of hard-coding values for fields like resource group or resource name in your queries, you can use variables in their place to create more interactive, dynamic, and reusable dashboards.

Check out the [Templating]({{< relref "../../variables/" >}}) documentation for an introduction to the templating feature and the different types of template variables.

The Azure Monitor data source provides the following queries you can specify in the Query field in the Variable edit view

Name	Description
Subscriptions	Returns subscriptions.
Resource Groups	Returns resource groups for a specified subscription.
Namespaces	Returns metric namespaces for the specified subscription and resource group.
Resource Names	Returns a list of resource names for a specified subscription, resource group and namespace.
Metric Names	Returns a list of metric names for a resource.
Workspaces	Returns a list of workspaces for the specified subscription.
Logs	Use a KQL query to return values.
Azure Resource Graph	Use an ARG query to return values.

Any Log Analytics KQL query that returns a single list of values can also be used in the Query field. For example:

Query	Description
workspace("myWorkspace").Heartbeat | distinct Computer	Returns a list of Virtual Machines
workspace("$workspace").Heartbeat | distinct Computer	Returns a list of Virtual Machines with template variable
workspace("$workspace").Perf | distinct ObjectName	Returns a list of objects from the Perf table
workspace("$workspace").Perf | where ObjectName == "$object" | distinct CounterName	Returns a list of metric names from the Perf table

Example of a time series query using variables:

Perf
| where ObjectName == "$object" and CounterName == "$metric"
| where TimeGenerated >= $__timeFrom() and TimeGenerated <= $__timeTo()
| where  $__contains(Computer, $computer)
| summarize avg(CounterValue) by bin(TimeGenerated, $__interval), Computer
| order by TimeGenerated asc

Limitations

As of Grafana 9.0, a resource URI is constructed to identify resources using the resource picker. On dashboards created prior to Grafana 9.0, Grafana automatically migrates any queries using the prior resource-picking mechanism to use this method.

Some resource types use nested namespaces and resource names, such as Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/tableServices and storageAccount/default, or Microsoft.Sql/servers/databases and serverName/databaseName. Such template variables cannot be used because the result could be a malformed resource URI.

Supported cases

Standard namespaces and resource names

metricDefinition = $ns
$ns = Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines
resourceName = $rs
$rs = testvirtualmachine

Namespaces with a non-templated sub-namespace

metricDefinition = $ns/tableServices
$ns = Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts
resourceName = $rs/default
$rs = storageaccount

Storage namespaces missing the default keyword

metricDefinition = $ns/tableServices
$ns = Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts
resourceName = $rs
$rs = storageaccount

Namespaces with a templated sub-namespace

metricDefinition = $ns/$sns
$ns = Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts
$sns = tableServices
resourceName = $rs
$rs = storageaccount

Unsupported case

If a dashboard uses this unsupported case, migrate it to one of the supported cases.

If a namespace or resource name template variable contains multiple segments, Grafana will construct the resource URI incorrectly because the template variable cannot be appropriately split.

For example:

metricDefinition = $ns
resourceName = $rs
$ns = 'Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/tableServices'
$rs = 'storageaccount/default'

This would result in an incorrect resource URI containing Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/tableServices/storageaccount/default. However, the correct URI would have the format Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/storageaccount/tableServices/default.

An appropriate fix would be to update the template variable that does not match a supported case. If the namespace variable $ns is of the form Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/tableServices this could be split into two variables: $ns1 = Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts and $ns2 = tableServices. The metric definition would then take the form $ns1/$ns2 which leads to a correctly formatted URI.