Map Your Data

To get the most out of Honeycomb visualizations, you will need to map some of the source fields in your sent data to Honeycomb-specific standard dataset fields.

Tip

Honeycomb can automatically detect and map the standard source data fields for you if you follow Honeycomb source field naming conventions. Otherwise, you must map your dataset fields manually.

Mapping Sent Data Manually

If you have already sent data into a Honeycomb dataset or you are unable to change field names in your source data, you can use Dataset Definitions to manually map the standard fields in your Honeycomb dataset to the source fields in your sent data:

In the Honeycomb UI, navigate to Data Settings.
Select the name of your target dataset to access its settings.
Select the Definitions view.
Locate the appropriate Honeycomb Dataset Field, then select the source field in your data that you want to map it to from the corresponding Field name dropdown.

Note

To explore available fields for each Honeycomb dataset type, visit Honeycomb Dataset Fields.
Select Update.

Mapping Visualization Components

Honeycomb visualizations contain components that rely on fields in your source data being mapped to Honeycomb standard fields.

Tip

If you ever see an unpopulated visualization in Honeycomb, check your dataset definitions first! Unmapped data is the main cause of visualizations missing data.

Trace Dropdowns

Each trace chart visualization’s accompanying dropdown is populated with source fields mapped to Honeycomb dataset fields. You can map your source fields to the selected dataset’s dataset fields using Dataset Definitions.

Dataset fields you can map include:

Error: Value that indicates an error occurred.
HTTP Status Code: Code that indicates the success, failure, or other status of a request.
Name: Name of the function or method in which the span was created.
Route: HTTP URL or equivalent route processed by the request.
User: User making the request in the system.

Note

Only source fields that have been mapped to dataset fields in dataset definitions appear in the dropdown. To ensure the dropdown includes the source field you want to group by, configure your dataset definitions.

For datasets that include Kubernetes metadata, the following fields are included if available:

k8s.pod.name, source.k8s.pod.name, or destination.k8s.pod.name: Name of the Kubernetes pod.
k8s.container.name, source.k8s.container.name, or destination.k8s.container.name: Name of the Kubernetes container.
k8s.node.name, source.k8s.node.name, or destination.node.name: Name of the Kubernetes node.
k8s.namespace.name, source.k8s.namespace.name, or destination.k8s.namespace.name: Name of the Kubernetes namespace.
source.k8s.service.name or destination.k8s.service.name: Name of the Kubernetes service.

To learn more about sending Kubernetes data to Honeycomb, visit Send Data from Kubernetes.