In this first episode of Widget Wednesday, we launch a new video series on practical, real-world dashboard widgets you can build directly in ControlUp.
Joel Stocker walks through a simple but powerful example: using a donut graph widget to visualize macOS device inventory data—specifically CPU and GPU chipset distribution across active devices. The goal is to show how raw telemetry can be transformed into a clear, immediately understandable visual without custom code or external tools.
What this widget shows
The widget breaks down macOS devices by GPU type, using production device data to answer a common operational question: what hardware is currently available? In this example, the visualization highlights 115 macOS devices out of roughly 400 total endpoints.
Where the data comes from
Rather than starting from scratch, Joel uses the built-in macOS Device Inventory dashboard. By duplicating and modifying an existing dashboard, you can quickly move from raw data to a tailored view that meets your needs.
How the widget is built
The video walks through the full setup process, including:
- Naming and describing the widget clearly
- Selecting Device Index and counting unique devices by device ID
- Grouping results by GPU type
- Sorting and limiting results to the top GPU variants
- Applying clean filters to include macOS devices only
Making it readable and usable
Beyond the data itself, Joel covers the visual details that matter:
- Donut chart styling
- Standardized color palettes
- Legends and callouts for chipset names
- Character limits to keep labels readable
- Minimum segment thresholds and “top X” grouping to avoid noise
Why this matters
With just a few configuration steps, you can turn complex inventory data into a dashboard-ready visual that’s easy to share and easy to understand. It’s a practical example of how widgets can help shorten the gap between data collection and insight.
This is Episode 1 of Widget Wednesday, with more examples coming that explore different ways to group, visualize, and operationalize ControlUp data.
Watch the video, try the widget yourself, and let us know what you’d like to see covered next.
Special thanks to Joel Stocker for walking through the build.
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Categories: ControlUp Dashboards, Widget Wednesday - ControlUp Dashboard Videos