# Exploring the Dashboard
The Trailonix dashboard provides a comprehensive overview of your application's logging activity, subscription usage, and alert status. It's your central command center for monitoring application health and staying on top of critical events.
## Dashboard Overview
Navigate to **"Dashboard"** in the Logging section to access your main overview. The dashboard is organized into several key sections that give you both high-level insights and actionable information about your logging activity.
## Log Events Chart
The **Log Events** chart shows your logging volume over the last 7 days, helping you understand patterns and identify unusual activity.
### Understanding the Chart
- **Y-axis**: Number of log events per day
- **X-axis**: Date range (last 7 days)
- **Blue line**: Daily log event volume
**What to Look For:**
- **Sudden spikes**: May indicate errors, increased traffic, or new features generating more logs
- **Unexpected drops**: Could signal application issues, reduced usage, or logging problems
- **Pattern changes**: Different usage patterns that might require attention
- **Weekend vs weekday patterns**: Normal variations in application usage
**Example Analysis:**
If you see a spike from 2,000 events to 8,500 events, investigate:
- Were there any deployments that day?
- Did any error conditions occur?
- Was there increased user activity?
- Are you logging new event types?
> **💡 Pro Tip:** Use this chart to validate that your logging is working correctly. No activity might mean your application isn't sending logs to Trailonix.
## Top Event Types
The **Top Event Types** pie chart breaks down your most frequent event types over the last 7 days, showing you what your application is logging most often.
### Reading the Chart
- **Percentages**: Show the relative frequency of each event type
- **Color coding**: Each event type gets a unique color for easy identification
- **Legend**: Lists all event types with their corresponding colors
**Common Types of Events You Might See:**
- **User authentication events** - Login attempts, successes, failures, logouts
- **System maintenance events** - Cleanup processes, scheduled tasks, resets
- **Business process events** - Orders, payments, user actions, workflows
- **Error and warning events** - System errors, validation failures, timeouts
- **Integration events** - API calls, webhooks, third-party service interactions
- **Security events** - Permission checks, suspicious activity, access attempts
### What This Tells You
**High-Frequency Events:**
- **System events** (cleanups, resets) are normal and expected
- **User events** (login/logout) indicate application usage
- **Error events** appearing frequently may need attention
**Event Type Analysis:**
- **Balanced distribution**: Indicates healthy, varied application activity
- **Single event dominating**: May indicate an issue or missing event types
- **Missing expected events**: Could mean certain features aren't logging properly
> **📊 Dashboard Strategy:** If you see event types you don't recognize, review your application code to ensure you're using consistent event type naming as outlined in the [Event Types Strategy Guide](/guides/event-types).
## Subscription Limits
The **Subscription Limits** section shows your current usage against your plan limits, helping you monitor consumption and plan for upgrades.
### Current Plan Information
Your dashboard shows: **"Your current subscription plan is: Professional"**
### Usage Tracking
**Tenants: 3 / 10**
- You're using 3 tenants out of your 10 allowed
- **Progress bar**: Visual indicator of usage (blue fill shows current usage)
- **Good capacity**: Room for 7 more application environments
**Alert Rules: 12 / 100**
- You have 12 alert rules configured out of 100 allowed
- **Moderate usage**: Good monitoring coverage with room to grow
- **Recommendation**: Consider adding more rules for comprehensive monitoring
**Premium Alerts: 1,247 / 15000**
- You've used 1,247 premium alerts (SMS or critical email alerts)
- **Comfortable usage**: Well within your generous allowance
- **Cost tracking**: Premium alerts are the main usage-based cost
**Daily Logs: 18,432 / 500000**
- Today you've logged 18,432 events out of 500,000 daily limit
- **Normal usage**: Healthy activity level with plenty of headroom
- **Monitoring**: This resets daily, so track patterns over time
**Monthly Overage: 0**
- No overage charges this month
- **Cost control**: Shows you're staying within your plan limits
- **Clean billing**: No unexpected charges
### Understanding the Progress Bars
Each limit shows a progress bar with different visual indicators:
- **Blue fill (< 75% usage)**: Safe usage level with plenty of capacity
- **Yellow fill (75-89% usage)**: Approaching limits, consider planning ahead
- **Red fill (90%+ usage)**: Near capacity, take action soon
- **Gray background**: Remaining capacity available
**When to Take Action:**
- **Yellow (75-89% usage)**: Start planning for upgrades or usage optimization
- **Red (90%+ usage)**: Take immediate action to avoid hitting limits
- **At limit**: May impact functionality or incur overage charges
## Recent Alerts
The **Recent Alerts** section shows alerts triggered over the last 7 days, helping you stay on top of issues and system events.
### Alert Information
**Example Alert:**
- **Alert Name**: `syslog_critical`
- **Triggered**: `6/25/25, 2:07 AM`
- **Recent activity**: Shows the most recent alert that fired
### What This Section Shows
**When You Have Alerts:**
- **Alert rule names**: Identifies which rule triggered
- **Timestamp**: When the alert fired
- **Quick access**: See recent activity at a glance
**When You See "No Recent Alerts":**
- **Quiet period**: No alerts have fired recently
- **Good sign**: May indicate stable application performance
- **Check alert setup**: Ensure your alert rules are configured correctly
### Alert Analysis
**Recent Alert Activity Indicates:**
- **System issues**: Critical alerts often indicate problems needing attention
- **Monitoring effectiveness**: Alerts are working and catching issues
- **Response needed**: Recent alerts may require investigation or action
**No Recent Alerts Could Mean:**
- **Stable system**: Everything is running smoothly
- **Alert rules need adjustment**: Thresholds might be too high
- **Missing coverage**: Important events might not have alert rules
> **🚨 Action Item:** Click on recent alerts to see details and determine if any action is needed.
## Recently Suppressed Alerts
The **Recently Suppressed Alerts** section shows alerts that were triggered but not sent due to suppression rules.
### Understanding Suppression
**When You See "No Recent Suppressions":**
- **No repeated alerts**: Alert rules haven't triggered multiple times within suppression windows
- **Effective thresholds**: Your alert thresholds may be well-tuned
- **Clean alerting**: Not experiencing alert fatigue
**When You See Suppressed Alerts:**
- **Alert rule name**: Which rule was suppressed
- **Suppression period**: Why the alert wasn't sent
- **Pattern analysis**: Multiple suppressions might indicate issues
### Why Alerts Get Suppressed
**Suppression Purpose:**
- **Reduce noise**: Prevents flooding from repeated alerts
- **Focus attention**: Ensures you see unique issues, not duplicates
- **Cost control**: Suppressed alerts don't count toward premium limits
**Common Suppression Scenarios:**
- **Intermittent issues**: Problem occurs repeatedly but isn't persistent
- **Batch processing**: Regular system events that occasionally trigger alerts
- **Configuration tuning**: Alert thresholds need adjustment
## Dashboard Best Practices
### Daily Monitoring Routine
**Quick Health Check:**
1. **Log Events Chart**: Verify normal logging activity
2. **Subscription Limits**: Check usage levels
3. **Recent Alerts**: Review any new alerts
4. **Top Event Types**: Ensure expected application activity
### Weekly Analysis
**Trend Review:**
1. **Compare weekly patterns** in the log events chart
2. **Analyze event type distribution** changes
3. **Review alert patterns** and suppression trends
4. **Plan capacity** based on usage growth
### Monthly Planning
**Subscription Management:**
1. **Review usage trends** against plan limits
2. **Plan for growth** if approaching limits
3. **Optimize alert rules** based on suppression patterns
4. **Consider plan adjustments** if needed
## Troubleshooting Common Dashboard Issues
### "No Log Events Showing"
**Possible Causes:**
- Application not sending logs to Trailonix
- Incorrect API key configuration
- Network connectivity issues
- Tenant selection issues
**Solutions:**
- Verify API key is correct and active
- Check application logging configuration
- Test log sending with a simple API call
- Confirm tenant selection in dashboard
### "Unexpected Event Types"
**Possible Causes:**
- Inconsistent event type naming in application
- Multiple developers using different conventions
- Legacy code with old event types
**Solutions:**
- Review [Event Types Strategy Guide](/guides/event-types)
- Audit application code for event type usage
- Implement constants for event type names
- Standardize naming across team
### "Too Many Premium Alerts"
**Possible Causes:**
- Alert rules set to "Critical" unnecessarily
- SMS alerts configured when email would suffice
- Alert thresholds too sensitive
**Solutions:**
- Review alert urgency settings (use Batch when possible)
- Replace SMS with email alerts where appropriate
- Adjust alert thresholds to reduce false positives
- Increase suppression periods for non-critical alerts
### "Missing Expected Alerts"
**Possible Causes:**
- Alert rules not configured for important events
- Event types not matching actual log events
- Alert thresholds set too high
- Suppression periods too long
**Solutions:**
- Review alert rule configuration
- Verify event type names match exactly
- Lower alert thresholds for testing
- Check suppression settings
- Test alerts with known conditions
## Dashboard Customization Tips
### Optimizing Your View
**Focus Areas:**
- **Monitor most critical metrics** for your application
- **Set up alerts** for key business and system events
- **Review patterns regularly** to understand normal vs abnormal activity
- **Use subscription limits** to plan capacity and costs
**Time Range Considerations:**
- **7-day view**: Good for short-term pattern analysis
- **Look for weekly cycles**: Business vs weekend usage patterns
- **Identify growth trends**: Increasing log volume over time
### Integration with Workflows
**Development Workflow:**
- Check dashboard after deployments
- Monitor for new event types from feature releases
- Verify alert rules work with new functionality
**Operations Workflow:**
- Daily dashboard review for issues
- Weekly pattern analysis for trends
- Monthly usage review for planning
**Team Communication:**
- Share dashboard insights in team meetings
- Use alert data for incident reviews
- Reference usage patterns for capacity planning
## What's Next?
Now that you understand the dashboard, you can:
- **[Set up more alert rules](/guides/setting-up-alerts)** to improve monitoring coverage
- **[Review your event types strategy](/guides/event-types)** to ensure consistent logging
- **[Explore the logs section](/guides/logs)** to investigate specific events and patterns
- **[Check your subscription settings](/guides/subscription)** to optimize your plan and usage
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**📊 Ready to optimize your monitoring?** Use the insights from your dashboard to create better alert rules and improve your application's logging strategy. The dashboard is your window into application health—make it work for you!