Display JSON String from SystemLink Tag as Table in Grafana

In SystemLink, you can store a string as a Tag and have its value display in Grafana. However, if it is a formatted string, such as a JSON string, string manipulation is needed to have it display meaningfully. This article will demonstrate how a JSON string saved as a Tag can be displayed in Grafana as a table.

1. Install latest version of SystemLink Server.
2. Install Grafana for SystemLink Server Edition
3. Create a string-based Tag:
   1. Log in to SystemLink
   2. Go to Utilities>>Tag
       
   3. Click Create
       
   4. Insert the tag name to Path. For demonstration purpose, the tag will be named as SystemLink_Demo
   5. Select String for Type
       
   6. Click Create
4. Double-click the newly created SystemLink_Demo tag.
5. Insert the following JSON string as value for demonstration purposes:
   {"John":{"name":"John","age":32,"role":"Technician"},"Smith":{"name":"Smith","age":44,"role":"Manager"},"Sam":{"name":"Sam","age":21,"role":"Intern"}}
6. Create a visualization in Grafana Dashboard:
   1. Go to Custom Applications>>Grafana
      
   2. Select New dashboard
       
   3. Click Add visualization
       
   4. Select SystemLink Tags in the Select data source panel
       
   5. At the panel on your right, select Table for visualization
      
   6. Insert SystemLink_Demo into Tag path
       
   7. Click Add transformation in Transformations tab.
      
   8. Select Extract fields
      
   9. Use the following configuration for the extract field transformation
      
   10. Select Add another transformation
       
   11. Select Transpose
       
   12. Select Add another transformation
   13. Select Extract fields
   14. Use the following configuration for the extract field transformation
        
   15. Click Save dashboard
       
       

Observe that now you have a table displaying the JSON string in a Grafana dashboard: