I have setup a streaming data flow from my PLCs through MQTT → Telegraf → Grafana Live. My question is how can i use dashboard variables to allow me to template the dashboard. I have MachineID as a variable. For example there are MachineID 100, 101, 102. There are metrics for each machine: BPM, Meter, Status. I cannot figure out how to use the Grafana Live datasource and load where the topic is “Machine/${mID}/BPM” for example. Am I missing something?
I am 95% sure you can do what you want if you were to use Node-RED between your MQTT data and InfluxDB. Then, in Grafana, you will have “MachineID” as a variable. Here is the article that can guide you through this process.
I am able to get the data loading into Influx properly. I THINK were my issue may lie is that the Grafana Live datasource does not, as yet, support panel variables??? Incidentally I did away with the MQTT service as it ended up not being needed. I will explore Node-Red regardless as it seems to be pretty cool little service.
Does this just mean you have Telegraf → Grafana Live?
I think you may be correct that Grafana Live datasource does not (yet) support variables.
We use a SCADA platform called Ignition. Ignition posts JSON formatted data to Telegraf and Telegraf posts it to both Influx for historical and Grafana Live for Streaming display.