User Interface

The Stroom web interface is designed for high-volume data management and complex pipeline development. It uses a tabbed environment that allows you to work on multiple documents (Pipelines, Indexes, Dashboards) simultaneously.

Overall layout

The interface is divided into three primary regions:

Main menu (top): Provides access to global tools, monitoring views, and security settings.
Explorer tree (left sidebar): The primary navigation component used to manage all documents and their hierarchical structure.
Main content area (centre): The space where document editors, data views, and monitoring screens are displayed in tabs.

The explorer tree

The Explorer Tree is a hierarchical view of all documents stored in Stroom. It functions similarly to a file system, allowing you to group related documents into folders.

Custom structure

The structure of the Explorer Tree is entirely up to you. Stroom does not enforce a specific layout for where documents must be placed. You might choose to group documents by project, by data source, or by environment (e.g., Dev, Test, Prod).

Security and visibility

The primary implication of the Explorer structure is Security. Stroom uses the tree hierarchy to manage document visibility and permissions.

Copied at creation: When you create a document or sub-folder, Stroom copies the permissions of the folder you create it in onto the new item. They are not inherited live: changing a folder's permissions later does not change the documents already inside it. To push a change down, use Apply To Descendants in the folder's permissions. When you copy or move a document, you choose whether it keeps its own permissions, takes the destination folder's, combines both, or has none.
Access control: By organising documents into restricted folders, you can easily control which users or groups can see or modify specific parts of the system. See Users, groups and permissions.

Folders as aggregated views

While folders are used for organisation, they also provide a powerful aggregated view of the documents they contain. When you open a folder in the main content area, it displays several tabs:

Data: Shows a combined stream list for every feed and pipeline in that folder and its sub-folders.
Processors: Lists all Processor Filters defined for any pipeline in that folder tree. This allows you to enable or disable processing for an entire project from one screen.
Active Tasks: Shows the processor tasks for the pipelines and feeds in that folder, including recently finished ones.
Permissions: Allows you to manage the access control list (ACL) for the folder.

Each tab is described with the concept it belongs to: the Data tab under Streams, the Processors tab and the Active Tasks tab under Processor Filters and Tasks, and the feed Settings tab under Feeds.

Which tabs each document has

Document	Tabs
Folder, and System at the root of the tree	Data, Processors, Active Tasks, Permissions
Feed	Data, Active Tasks, Settings, Documentation, Permissions
Pipeline	Data, Structure, Processors, Active Tasks, Documentation, Permissions

A tab that is missing is almost always a missing application permission, not a fault:

Tab	Shown only to users with
Data	`Data - View`
Processors, Active Tasks	`Manage Processors`

The other tabs are shown to anyone who can open the document.

Why a button is greyed out

Stroom shows a button greyed out, rather than hiding it, when you are allowed to use it but it would not do anything with what is currently selected. It hides a button entirely when you do not have the permission it needs. So a greyed-out button is usually about the selection, and a missing one is about permissions.

The common cases, each explained on its own page:

You see	Because
Process, Delete, Download greyed out on a Data tab, with a row highlighted	Those buttons act on the ticked streams, and a highlighted row is not ticked. See The Data tab.
Restore always greyed out	The list's default filter only shows `Unlocked` streams, so it never contains a deleted stream to restore. See Restore.
Upload missing on a folder or pipeline	Upload is only offered on a feed's Data tab, because a stream has to belong to one feed.
Edit, Delete and Show Tasks greyed out on a Processors tab	The processor row is selected; they act on filter rows. See The Processors tab.
Add missing on a folder's Processors tab	Filters are added from the pipeline that will run them, never from a folder.
No buttons at all on a folder's Processors tab	That tab is editable only by users with `Administrator`.
Feed Status greyed out on a feed's Settings tab	Feed status only applies when `receiptCheckMode` is `FEED_STATUS`. See Feed settings.
Save greyed out	There are no unsaved changes. An unsaved document has `*` before its name on its tab.

The main menu provides access to system-wide functionality, grouped into eight menus: Administration, Annotations, Tools, Monitoring, Navigation, Security, User and Help. Which items you see depends on your application permissions.

Stream data is not on any of these menus. It is on the Data tab of a feed, a pipeline or a folder.

Administration

System-wide configuration.

Data Volumes and Index Volumes: Where the stream store and index shards are written; see Volumes.
Data Retention: The rules that decide how long streams are kept; see Streams.
Data Receipt Rules: The rules that decide whether received data is accepted; see Data receipt.
Content Templates: Templates for creating content automatically when data arrives for a new feed.
Properties: The configuration properties of the cluster; see Nodes, jobs and properties.

Annotations

Browse and create annotations, and manage the collections, labels and statuses they use.

Tools

Contains utilities for managing content and configurations.

Content Store: Allows you to install and upgrade content packs (schemas, standard visualisations, etc.).
Import and Export: Used to move Stroom configurations between different environments; see Content management.
Dependencies: Visualises the relationships and dependencies between different Stroom documents.

Monitoring

This menu is essential for administrators and developers to track system health and processing progress.

Jobs: Allows management of scheduled system jobs (e.g., cleanup, merging); see Nodes, jobs and properties.
Nodes: Lists every node in the Stroom cluster, with its build version, ping time and up time, and the jobs on each node.
Node Groups and Processor Profiles: Control which nodes do processing, and when; see Processing.
Server Tasks: Shows the tasks running on each node across the cluster, and lets you stop them.
Caches: Lists the in-memory caches, with their size and hit rate on each node, and lets you clear them.
Database Tables: The row count and size of each database table.
Execution Schedule Manager: The schedules that run analytic rules and reports.
Search Results: The search results held on the server.

Finding your way round the explorer tree: Find, Find in Content, Recent Items, Locate Current Item and Add Current Item to Favourites. It also opens, saves and deletes tab sessions, which are named sets of open tabs.

Security

Used for managing access to the system; see Users, groups and permissions.

Users and User Groups: Manage users and their group memberships. Manage Accounts manages the accounts of Stroom's own identity provider.
Application Permissions: Define high-level system permissions (e.g., Manage Users or Data - View).
Document Permissions: The permissions users and groups hold on documents.
User Access: Each user's sessions and tokens across the cluster.
Manage API Keys: Manage tokens for external systems to interact with Stroom APIs; see API keys.
Signing Keys: The keys Stroom's own identity provider signs its tokens with.
Credentials Manager: Stored credentials, such as the password for a Git server, used by name so that documents never hold them.

User and Help

User holds your own settings: Preferences, User Profile, Change Password, Sign Out and Sign Out Other Sessions.

Help opens this documentation, the API Specification, and the About box with the version of Stroom you are running.