# How to use countdown refresh as a variable? **URL:** \ **Category:** Grafana\ **Tags:** panel, plugins\ **Created:** [April 5, 2022, 4:24am UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/how-to-use-countdown-refresh-as-a-variable/63468 "2022-04-05T04:24:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![scottandrews](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5e9695/32.png) [@scottandrews](https://community.grafana.com/u/scottandrews)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2022, 4:24am UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/how-to-use-countdown-refresh-as-a-variable/63468/1 "2022-04-05T04:24:27Z")
Hi everyone, Using Grafana 8.3.1 on Windows. I have a dashboard which is displaying free desks in a large office building with many hot desks. My plan is to place the dashboard on a few screens running in kiosk mode so that staff walking into the building who may not have booked a desk (happens a lot!) can locate free desks quickly and easily. I have the dashboard refreshing automatically once every minute at the moment so staff don’t have to wait too long. However, as each desk sensor individually sends accurate free data once every twenty minutes, I think a refresh once every 5 minutes is more appropriate and helps mitigate load against the database servers. I have installed the Grafana Clock plugin. It does a countdown. I would like the clock plugin to countdown to when the next screen refresh is going to take place but I am unable to find if there is a global variable for that - hoping the community can advise. Many thanks. ---
**Author:** ![anon70503803](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@anon70503803](https://community.grafana.com/u/anon70503803)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2022, 10:10pm UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/how-to-use-countdown-refresh-as-a-variable/63468/2 "2022-04-11T22:10:42Z")
hmmm, this is a fun one. I imagine it might be possible to tap into the logic keeping track of the panel refresh interval, but that would probably involve extra development on the clock panel… > **[GitHub - grafana/clock-panel: Clock Panel Plugin for Grafana](https://github.com/grafana/clock-panel)** > > Clock Panel Plugin for Grafana. Contribute to grafana/clock-panel development by creating an account on GitHub.