Improve Kibana learning tutorial with richer examples#5399
Improve Kibana learning tutorial with richer examples#5399florent-leborgne wants to merge 9 commits intomainfrom
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New learning-oriented page covering an end-to-end Kibana workflow: ingest system logs with Elastic Agent, explore data in Discover with ES|QL, build a dashboard with Lens visualizations, and share it. Also updates the explore-analyze index and TOC to link to the new page. Closes elastic/docs-content-internal#811 Made-with: Cursor
Rework the "Learn data exploration and visualization" tutorial to better showcase Kibana's strengths through concrete, experiential examples: - Replace plain count metric with median response size (bytes formatting, dynamic coloring, background sparkline) - Add reference line to line chart for visual threshold context - Make inline editing step concrete (exclude blanks via regex) - Add interactive cross-filtering step (click 404 to filter dashboard) - Add screenshots for each Lens visualization step - Surface Lens smart defaults (auto chart type, auto time axis) - Mention ES|QL autocomplete, Discover contextual adaptation, pre-built integration dashboards, dashboard controls, and collapsible sections - Simplify sharing to link-based flow with accurate access control info - Expand navigation section with saved sessions and ES|QL panel paths - Add machine learning to Next steps Closes elastic/docs-content-internal#811 Made-with: Cursor
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- Replace {icon}`editorCodeBlock` with {icon}`code` (matching try-esql.md)
- Remove broken /reference/beats.md link (page does not exist)
Made-with: Cursor
Made-with: Cursor
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Hey @teresaalvarezsoler & @ninoslavmiskovic, some fairly hot SEO issue came our way and I had to quickly get a "core kibana analyst features" learning-oriented page up. The way I went about it is to show some end-to-end story that starts in discover and ends with sharing a dashboard. It shows or mentions some features (sometimes to keep the overall flow centered I "just" linked to features with some context such as controls, collapsible sections, etc.). Let me know what you think about the overall narrative here, and if there are some things you'd like me to better highlight or more concretely show. Keep in mind that this is really meant to be an entry point more than an exhaustive tour of all features 🙏 |
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Thanks @florent-leborgne. I will let @ninoslavmiskovic comment on the Discover side but I wonder why we need the SORT and LIMIT in the ES|QL queries. I think we can remove these from the main examples and just add a note about LIMIT if users need it (their results shouldn't be slow).
For the dashboard, it doesn't look very good... Can we have a dashboard that looks more like this one? With some metrics to the top, then a couple of time series and a bar chart and finally a table? @gvnmagni can you help?
…tion - Remove SORT and LIMIT from both ES|QL queries to reduce complexity; add a tip about these commands for readers who want them. - Add a "Keep experimenting" step encouraging readers to add more panels on their own (unique visitors metric, bytes over time, events table). - Expand the "Arrange and save" step with concrete layout guidance (metrics top, time series middle, bar/table bottom) and a polished dashboard screenshot. Made-with: Cursor
Thanks @teresaalvarezsoler - I would keep the sort by timestamp, since it is sorting logs and makes sense. The LIMIT 50 would be something I would remove ++ There is a hidden LIMIT 1000 that we apply anywhere. We spend a lot of effort on removing the default LIMIT 10, let's not introduce it again :) Otherwise seems good to me. |
- Reorder chart steps to metric → line → bar (matches top-to-bottom dashboard layout). - Add host breakdown to line chart and lower reference line to 70. - Add ES|QL table step (adding panels from dashboard via ES|QL). - Replace vague "Keep experimenting" with collapsible dropdowns for optional panels and an "Expand your dashboard" step. - Add SORT back to first ES|QL query; update learning objectives. - Rename file to kibana-data-exploration-learning-tutorial.md per content type naming convention; update toc.yml and index.md refs. Made-with: Cursor
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Thanks for the notes @teresaalvarezsoler @ninoslavmiskovic; Let me know what you think |
Thanks Florent, the dashboard looks much better now. Thanks for making the changes. Are you using the latest main? I see the x-axis still in bold when they should be regular. We can also hide them. Also, we should adjust the panels sizes (metrics should have a max of 5 rows, time series should be more compact too...) @gvnmagni can you help @florent-leborgne with the last mile of dashboard changes to make it more beautiful.. |
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@teresaalvarezsoler I'm using serverless production to reflect the current reality of products, but I can still update my screenshot later this week after the next serverless deployment, my dashboard is saved so it'll be very quick to do - I had to zoom out a little to show more panels vertically so maybe that's also causing some of the strange size feeling; I will check if I can make it better and check with Giovanni |
Add concrete sizing guidance to the "Arrange and save" step (metrics ~5 rows, charts ~10-12 rows) and replace the dashboard screenshot with a version that has compact panels, hidden x-axis titles, and daily grid lines. Made-with: Cursor
Use the correct navigation: Style panel > Bottom axis > Axis title, and change the example from time series (where it defaults to None) to bar chart where users are more likely to need it. Made-with: Cursor
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Summary
Creates a new hands-on tutorial, "Learn data exploration and visualization with Kibana", that teaches new Kibana users the core analyst workflow from raw data to a shareable dashboard. It replaces the old 8.x "Quick start" page (which was redirected to a generic hub page) with a proper onboarding experience, in order to fix urgent SEO issues.
The tutorial uses the built-in sample web logs dataset so readers can follow along immediately. It walks through:
The tutorial is designed so readers experience Kibana's strengths naturally through the steps (smart defaults, instant previews, cross-filtering, the Discover-to-dashboard loop) rather than being told about them.
Also updates
explore-analyze/index.mdto add a link to the tutorial.Closes https://github.com/elastic/docs-content-internal/issues/811
Test plan
Generative AI disclosure
Tool(s) and model(s) used: Cursor and
claude-4.6-opus-high