BI 03 — APIs, Integrations & Dashboard Building

SME Track: BI & Data Analysts

Presenter: Pramod Saripalli

Date: 2026-10-21

SLB × Elastic Workshop Program

Overview

Elasticsearch API basics and building dashboards for operational reporting.

Where this applies

These labs run on Observability Serverless — a fully managed project so you can practice without cluster operations.

The same capabilities you explore here — ES|QL, Streams, AI Assistant, Agent Builder, Workflows, and SLOs — are available on Elastic Cloud Hosted (ECH) and self-managed deployments.

Serverless mainly saves operational toil (sizing, ILM, Fleet, upgrades). Your observability skills transfer directly.

Session topics

  • API calls and pulling data into external tools
  • Building dashboards for operational and business review
  • Data schema considerations

Why these features?

Dashboards & LensGrafana-style views, Elastic-native drilldowns
🔐API keys & accessSecure multi-team automation on any deployment
ES|QLOne query language for logs, metrics, and traces

Use → to see why each feature matters for SLB.

Why Dashboards & Lens?

Grafana-style views, Elastic-native drilldowns

Without it

Static panels that break when fields change — no path from chart to raw events without switching tools.

With Dashboards & Lens

Lens builds visualizations drag-and-drop; dashboards link to Discover, APM, and ES|QL for drilldown.

  • Familiar panel workflow for Grafana users
  • Share operational and business review boards in one project
  • Markdown KPI panels for runbook links and escalation info
Lens panel
Dashboard
Drilldown

Why API keys & access?

Secure multi-team automation on any deployment

Without it

Shared credentials, over-privileged scripts, and no clear ownership per integration.

With API keys & access

Scoped API keys and role patterns — project keys on Serverless, deployment keys on ECH, native users on self-managed.

  • Automate dashboards and CI checks without shared passwords
  • Audit who can query vs who can configure Streams
  • Architect-friendly boundary between teams on one project
Team
API key
Scoped access

Why ES|QL?

One query language for logs, metrics, and traces

Without it

Different syntax per signal — PromQL for metrics, LogQL for logs, trace UI only — context switching slows incidents.

With ES|QL

ES|QL pipes data through filters, stats, and joins across observability datasets in Logs Explorer and Dev Tools.

  • Faster investigations with reusable query patterns
  • Same syntax in Logs Explorer on Serverless, ECH, and self-managed
  • AI Assistant can draft and explain ES|QL for your team
FROM logs-*
STATS / WHERE
Answer

Hands-on lab

Your lab uses Elastic Observability Serverless for a zero-ops learning environment.

The steps and features are the same on ECH and on-prem — follow the assignment panel when Kibana opens.

Instruqt track: slb-sme-bi-analysts

Resources

  • Registration: events.elastic.co/slbworkshops
  • Repo: github.com/poulsbopete/slb-workshops
  • Use ← → arrow keys to navigate slides