Dashboard - Hide results until search is complete

[randy_moore]

I created a dashboard that will be used in our NOC. I have a few panels that are defined as Single Value. I apply color coding to these SV panels. What happens is that as the panel refreshes the color coding happens, so the NOC analysts will see the panel go red until the search is complete. I don't want that to happen as this causes them to start ignoring non-green colors. Is there a way to hide either the color coding or the complete results until the search is completed?

Quick example of one of the panel definitions, in case you need that

<row>
    <panel>
      <single>
        <title>Active Store Count</title>
        <search>
          <query>index=acme  (category=traffic name=store) OR (category=transaction) |  eval Store = coalesce(track_value, store_number) |  stats dc(Store)</query>
          <earliest>-5m</earliest>
          <latest>now</latest>
        </search>
        <option name="colorBy">value</option>
        <option name="colorMode">block</option>
        <option name="drilldown">none</option>
        <option name="numberPrecision">0</option>
        <option name="rangeColors">["0xd93f3c","0xf7bc38","0x65a637"]</option>
        <option name="rangeValues">[550,600]</option>
        <option name="showSparkline">true</option>
        <option name="showTrendIndicator">false</option>
        <option name="trendColorInterpretation">standard</option>
        <option name="trendDisplayMode">absolute</option>
        <option name="trendInterval">auto</option>
        <option name="underLabel">Active Stores (past 5 min)</option>
        <option name="unitPosition">after</option>
        <option name="useColors">1</option>
        <option name="useThousandSeparators">0</option>
        <option name="linkView">search</option>
      </single>
    </panel>

[frobinson_splun · Accepted solution]

@randy_moore,
Here's a previous Answers post that I think will help with your question.
https://answers.splunk.com/answers/218623/how-to-hide-panels-with-no-results-from-a-dashboar.html

In your scenario, you can use a panel "depends" attributes to control panel display according to a token value that gets set only when the search is done. Use a search event handler to set that token to the value that triggers panel display.

See also
http://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/6.6.0/Viz/EventHandlerReference
http://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/6.6.0/Viz/tokens#Define_search_tokens

Hope this helps!