---
title: "Zabbix annotations | Grafana Plugins documentation"
description: "Display Zabbix problems and events as annotations on Grafana panels."
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

# Zabbix annotations

Annotations overlay event markers on graph panels, letting you correlate Zabbix problems and recovery events with metric data. When a Zabbix trigger fires or recovers, the annotation appears as a vertical line on the graph at the time the event occurred.

## Before you begin

- [Configure the Zabbix data source](/docs/plugins/alexanderzobnin-zabbix-app/latest/configure/).
- Understand [Grafana annotations](/docs/grafana/latest/dashboards/build-dashboards/annotate-visualizations/).

## Add an annotation query

To add Zabbix annotations to a dashboard:

1. Open a dashboard and click **Dashboard settings** (gear icon).
2. Click **Annotations** in the left menu.
3. Click **Add annotation query**.
4. Select the Zabbix data source.
5. Configure the annotation query fields described in the following sections.
6. Click **Apply**.

## Annotation query fields

Use the following fields to filter which Zabbix problems appear as annotations.

Expand table

| Field            | Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               |
|------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| **Group**        | Filter by host group. Select from the drop-down or type a custom value. Supports regex and template variables.                                                                                                                                                            |
| **Host**         | Filter by host. Select from the drop-down or type a custom value. Supports regex and template variables.                                                                                                                                                                  |
| **Application**  | Filter by application. Select from the drop-down or type a custom value. Supports regex and template variables.                                                                                                                                                           |
| **Problem**      | Filter by problem name, matched against the trigger name. A plain value must match the name exactly. To match partially, use a regex wrapped in forward slashes (for example, `/CPU/`) or a `*` wildcard (for example, `High CPU*`). Leave empty to include all problems. |
| **Min severity** | Show only events at or above this severity level: Not classified, Information, Warning, Average, High, or Disaster.                                                                                                                                                       |

## Annotation options

These toggle options control which events appear and what information is displayed.

Expand table

| Option                       | Description                                                                |
|------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| **Show OK events**           | Display recovery (OK) events as annotations in addition to problem events. |
| **Hide acknowledged events** | Exclude problems that have been acknowledged in Zabbix.                    |
| **Show hostname**            | Add the hostname of each event as an annotation tag.                       |

## Annotation content

Each annotation is rendered from the matching Zabbix problem:

- **Title**: `Problem` when the event is active or `OK` when it’s a recovery event.
- **Text**: the problem (trigger) name, followed by acknowledgment details when the problem has been acknowledged.
- **Tags**: the host names of the affected hosts when **Show hostname** is enabled.

## Examples

### Monitor high-severity events across production

Annotate a dashboard with only high-severity and disaster-level problems from your production servers.

1. Set **Group** to the host group containing your production servers (for example, `Production`).
2. Set **Host** to `/.*/` to include all hosts in the group.
3. Set **Min severity** to **High**.
4. Enable **Show OK events** to see both when problems start and when they resolve.
5. Enable **Show hostname** to identify which host triggered each event.

### Annotate problems for a single host

Overlay all problems from one host onto its dashboard.

1. Set **Group** to the host’s group (or leave it empty).
2. Set **Host** to the exact host name (for example, `web01`).
3. Leave **Problem** and **Min severity** at their defaults to include every problem.

### Filter by problem name

Show only problems whose trigger name mentions CPU, regardless of severity.

1. Set **Group** to `/.*/` and **Host** to `/.*/` to search all hosts.
2. Set **Problem** to `/CPU/` to match any trigger name containing `CPU`.

Because a plain value matches the trigger name exactly, use the regex form (`/CPU/`) or a wildcard (`CPU*`) for partial matches.

### Show only unacknowledged problems

Reduce noise by hiding problems that an operator has already acknowledged in Zabbix.

1. Configure the **Group**, **Host**, and **Min severity** filters for the events you care about.
2. Enable **Hide acknowledged events**.

## Next steps

- [Build queries with the Zabbix query editor](/docs/plugins/alexanderzobnin-zabbix-app/latest/query-editor/)
- [Set up alerting rules](/docs/plugins/alexanderzobnin-zabbix-app/latest/alerting/)