How to Add Interactive Variables to Grafana Dashboards for Dynamic Monitoring

What are Grafana Variables?

Variables are dynamic parameters in Grafana that let you change the data displayed on a dashboard without editing each panel query, using dropdowns or input fields.

Tip: Think of them as a control knob for the whole dashboard.

Browser Configuration Variable

To create a data‑source variable:

Select Data source as the variable type.

Set Name (used in PromQL).

Set Label for panel display.

Choose Prometheus as the data source type.

(Optional) Add a regex filter, e.g. /^(?!default).*/, to exclude the default source.

Resulting dashboard screenshot:

Business Tag Variable

To create a query variable for business tags:

Select Query as the variable type.

Set Name and Label .

Choose the data source ${datasource}.

Set Query type to retrieve label values.

Specify the label (e.g., instance) and metric.

(Optional) Enable Multi‑value and Include All options.

Resulting dashboard screenshot:

JSON File Variable

You can also define variables in a JSON dashboard file. Example snippets show the basic dashboard structure and how to embed a datasource variable and a business‑tag variable in the templating.list array.

{
  "uid": "",
  "title": "study dashboard",
  "tags": [],
  "timezone": "CST",
  "editable": false,
  "panels": [],
  "refresh": false,
  "time": {"from": "now-3h", "to": "now"},
  "templating": {"list": []}
}

{
  "uid": "230e0fc0f0544d1b9e7910f5e27f9a0c",
  "title": "study dashboard",
  "tags": [],
  "timezone": "CST",
  "editable": false,
  "panels": [],
  "refresh": false,
  "time": {"from": "now-3h", "to": "now"},
  "templating": {
    "list": [
      {
        "type": "datasource",
        "name": "datasource",
        "label": "Datasource",
        "query": "prometheus",
        "regex": "/^(?!default).*/"
      }
    ]
  }
}

{
  "uid": "230e0fc0f0544d1b9e7910f5e27f9a0c",
  "title": "study dashboard",
  "tags": [],
  "timezone": "CST",
  "editable": false,
  "panels": [],
  "refresh": false,
  "time": {"from": "now-3h", "to": "now"},
  "templating": {
    "list": [
      {
        "type": "datasource",
        "name": "datasource",
        "label": "Datasource",
        "query": "prometheus",
        "regex": "/^(?!default).*/"
      },
      {
        "type": "query",
        "name": "instance",
        "label": "host",
        "datasource": {"uid": "${datasource}"},
        "query": "label_values(node_memory_Active_bytes, instance)",
        "includeAll": true,
        "multi": true
      }
    ]
  }
}

Conclusion

After reading this article you should understand the basics of Grafana variables and be able to build dashboards with interactive, dynamic data selection.