Connecting Data Sources — Grafana Dashboards

Provisioning via YAML (Recommended)

Configure data sources as YAML provisioning files so Grafana starts up fully configured without manual UI steps. Place these files in /etc/grafana/provisioning/datasources/:

# grafana-provisioning/datasources/bizfirst-observe.yaml
apiVersion: 1

datasources:

  # ── Loki ────────────────────────────────────────────
  - name: Loki
    uid: loki-uid
    type: loki
    url: http://loki:3100
    access: proxy
    isDefault: false
    jsonData:
      maxLines: 5000
      timeout: 60
      derivedFields:
        - name: TraceID
          matcherRegex: '"traceId":"(\w+)"'
          url: '${__value.raw}'
          datasourceName: Tempo
          datasourceUid: tempo-uid

  # ── Prometheus ──────────────────────────────────────
  - name: Prometheus
    uid: prometheus-uid
    type: prometheus
    url: http://prometheus:9090
    access: proxy
    isDefault: true
    jsonData:
      timeInterval: 15s
      queryTimeout: 60s
      httpMethod: POST
      exemplarTraceIdDestinations:
        - name: traceID
          datasourceUid: tempo-uid

  # ── Tempo ────────────────────────────────────────────
  - name: Tempo
    uid: tempo-uid
    type: tempo
    url: http://tempo:3200
    access: proxy
    isDefault: false
    jsonData:
      tracesToLogs:
        datasourceName: Loki
        datasourceUid: loki-uid
        tags: ['service.name', 'job']
        spanStartTimeShift: -5m
        spanEndTimeShift: 5m
        filterByTraceID: true
      tracesToMetrics:
        datasourceName: Prometheus
        datasourceUid: prometheus-uid
        tags:
          - key: service.name
            value: job
      serviceMap:
        datasourceUid: prometheus-uid
      search:
        hide: false
      nodeGraph:
        enabled: true

Verifying Data Source Connections

After provisioning or manual configuration, verify each data source:

Loki — Check label values are returning

Go to Explore → select Loki → Label Browser → confirm that job, environment, tenant_id labels are populated with BizFirstGO service names.

Prometheus — Check targets are UP

Go to Explore → select Prometheus → enter up → run query → confirm all BizFirstGO service targets show value 1.

Tempo — Check trace search works

Go to Explore → select Tempo → Search tab → select Service Name: processengine → run search → confirm traces appear in results.

Common Data Source Issues

Issue	Data Source	Likely Cause	Fix
Label browser empty	Loki	No logs ingested yet, or wrong URL	Check Collector is running and sending to Loki
`up` shows 0 for services	Prometheus	Services not reachable on scrape port	Check network connectivity and /metrics endpoint
Trace search returns no results	Tempo	No traces ingested, or retention expired	Check OTel Collector Tempo exporter; trigger a workflow
TraceId links don't work	Loki → Tempo	Derived Fields regex doesn't match log format	Adjust matcherRegex to match your actual log format

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