Workbooks provide a flexible canvas for data analysis and the creation of rich visual reports within the Azure portal. They allow you to tap into multiple data sources from across Azure and combine them into unified interactive experiences. Read more at the source, Microsoft Docs.

Vanessa and I have put together a workbook to visually report on computers missing updates. This can be done with Kusto queries in Log Analytics. Still, with workbooks, you can visualize it in a better way and make this visualization available to colleagues. It is also easier for someone without Kusto and Log Analytic knowledge to run a workbook.

In this example, we have to build a workbook that first lists all computers that are missing an update. We can see the computer name and the number of missing updates in the first view. If we select one of the servers, a new table is visualized, with detailed information for that computer, showing which updates that are missing. If we choose one of the updates, we get an additional table showing other computers missing the same update.

We would like to highlight some of the features used in the workbook that can be handy to know about when building workbooks.

To pass a value between queries inside the workbook, we can configure to export parameters per query item. This is set under Advanced Settings. In this example, the Computer column will be exported. To use this value in a query use {Computer}, for example

Update
| where TimeGenerated > now(-1d)
| where UpdateState == “Needed”
| where computer == “{Computer}”
| project TimeGenerated, Title, Classification, PublishedDate, Product, RebootBehavior, UpdateID
| sort by Product

Under Advanced Settings, you can also configure how to handle no data scenario. In this example, if no computers are missing updates, there will be a text saying, “Great! No servers missing updates!”.

Another handy setting is column settings. With column settings, you can, for example, rename a column in the workbook. In this example, we rename column “count_” to “# missing updates”.

The last feature we want to highlight is conditionally visible. Conditionally visible control when a query item is visible. In this example, the previous query item is not visualized until the user selects an update in the last query item. The UpdateID is exported as a parameter for the rest of the workbook.