How to build custom project dashboards in SonarQube Cloud Enterprise

SonarQube Cloud Enterprise introduces a powerful project dashboards feature that enables development teams to create tailored views of their code quality metrics and trends. Rather than relying on generic dashboards, teams can now design custom dashboards that display the specific key indicators, metrics, and trends most relevant to their projects and organizational needs.

Understanding Dashboard Options

Within SonarQube Cloud Enterprise, users will find a dedicated dashboards tab containing two primary options. The built-in project health dashboard provides a comprehensive overview covering essential metrics across security, reliability, and maintainability—offering immediate visibility into a project's overall health. For teams seeking more granular insights, the "all dashboards" section displays all previously created dashboards and provides the option to either edit existing dashboards or create new ones from scratch. Additionally, users can access SonarQube documentation for further guidance on viewing and managing dashboards.

Creating and Customizing Dashboards

To build a custom dashboard, users begin by selecting a name and description for their new dashboard, which is then added to the dashboards list. Once created, users enter edit mode to add widgets and sections tailored to their needs. For instance, a team might add a count widget with trend indicators to track issue numbers over time, filtering by metrics such as overall code, new code, software quality, and status. Line charts can be incorporated to visualize metric data across time periods, complete with legends and customizable filters. This flexibility allows teams to combine multiple visualization types—counts, trend indicators, line charts, and donut charts—to create comprehensive views of their codebase metrics.

Organizing Dashboards with Sections

Beyond individual widgets, users can organize their dashboards by creating dedicated sections that group related metrics and indicators. For example, a security-focused section might include a count widget tracking security issues with trends, a donut chart displaying issue severity distribution filtered by security concerns, and another donut chart analyzing issue counts by programming language within security-filtered results. This organizational approach enables teams to quickly assess specific aspects of their projects at a glance.

Key Takeaways

• SonarQube Cloud Enterprise offers both a built-in project health dashboard and the ability to create fully customized project dashboards
• Custom dashboards support multiple widget types including counts, trend indicators, line charts, and donut charts with flexible filtering options
• Users can organize dashboards into logical sections to group related metrics and focus on specific areas such as security, reliability, or maintainability
• Dashboards are fully editable and can be arranged and modified to match team preferences and organizational needs
• SonarQube continues to expand dashboard functionality with plans for additional widgets and enhancements