Grafana Data Source

Parseable data source plugin lets you query and visualize logs, metrics, and traces stored in Parseable from your Grafana dashboards, Explore views, and alert rules.

Pre-requisites

• Parseable server running and receiving telemetry from your application.
• Grafana >= 10.0.0 installed and running.

Installation

Several ways to install the plugin:

• Grafana UI: install from your Grafana instance (Configuration > Data sources > Add Data source > search "Parseable").

• Grafana CLI: grafana-cli plugins install parseable-parseable-datasource. Restart Grafana.

• Grafana Helm Chart: add under the plugins section of values.yaml:

plugins:
  - https://grafana.com/api/plugins/parseable-parseable-datasource/versions/2.0.0/download;parseable-parseable-datasource

Add under the datasources section:

## ref: http://docs.grafana.org/administration/provisioning/#datasources
datasources:
  datasources.yaml:
    apiVersion: 1
    datasources:
    - name: Parseable
      type: parseable-parseable-datasource
      url: http://parseable.parseable
      access: proxy
      isDefault: true
      basicAuth: true
      basicAuthUser: admin
      secureJsonData:
        basicAuthPassword: admin

Update url, basicAuthUser, and basicAuthPassword for your instance.

To install the plugin alongside Grafana itself, set GF_INSTALL_PLUGINS=parseable-parseable-datasource 2.0.0 and restart Grafana.

For Ansible / config-management provisioning, see the Grafana provisioning docs.

Configuration

Set the URL and port of your Parseable server (e.g. https://<your-parseable-host>:8000). Parseable uses basic auth — toggle Basic Auth under the Auth section and enter the credentials under Basic Auth Details.

Click Save & Test. If it fails, check credentials and connectivity.

Query Modes

The plugin auto-selects available editor modes based on the dataset type of the selected stream.

Logs and Traces — Builder or SQL

• Builder: dropdown-driven UI for filters, aggregates, time range, and ordering. Filter values populate from dataset_stats with top-5 suggestions and an inline Show more for the full set.
• SQL (Code): full SQL editor with autocomplete for fields, types, and operators. Double-quote wrapping for identifiers happens automatically.

Metrics — Builder or PromQL

Metrics streams expose Prometheus-compatible endpoints.

• Builder: Prometheus-style UI — pick a metric name, add label matchers (=, !=, =~, !~), live PromQL preview of the assembled selector. Label values are scoped to the selected metric and time range.
• PromQL (Code): full PromQL editor with Lezer-based syntax highlighting, completion (metric names, labels, functions), signature help, hover docs, and inline error markers.

Switching between modes preserves your selection where possible (Builder selectors compose into a valid PromQL selector when you flip to Code).

Alerts

Grafana alerts work against any of the three dataset types.

• Logs / traces: use Builder or SQL to produce numeric reducers (count, avg, sum, etc.).
• Metrics: use PromQL with the standard rate(...), sum by (...), threshold patterns.

Setting Up an Alert

• Navigate to your-domain:port/alerting/new/alerting.
• Add a unique rule name.
• Add a query that returns numeric values.
• Specify threshold behavior for the defined rule query.
• Define evaluation behavior (frequency, grouping).
• Save the alert.

Managing Alerts

List, edit, or delete alerts at your-domain:port/alerting/list.

Notification Channels

Configure receivers at your-domain:port/alerting/notifications/receivers/new. Grafana supports Alertmanager, Email, Slack, Telegram, Webhook, Microsoft Teams, and more.

Notification Policies

Route alerts to the right channels at your-domain:port/alerting/routes.

The alerts list page shows current status, last fired/evaluated times, and the rule query results.

Mapping Non-Numeric Values for Alerts

This applies to SQL queries on logs / traces. PromQL queries on metrics don't need this — metric values are already numeric, label matchers filter strings, and comparison operators return 0/1 directly.

Grafana alert evaluators compare numeric values. Map string statuses to numbers in SQL when alerting on log fields:

SELECT
  ...
  CASE
    WHEN status = 'OK'    THEN 0
    WHEN status = 'WARN'  THEN 1
    WHEN status = 'ERROR' THEN 2
  END AS status_value
FROM
  table_name