GLPI's built-in reports cover the basics, but organizations with mature reporting needs usually outgrow them. The next step is connecting GLPI data to an external BI tool — Metabase, Grafana, Power BI, or similar — where you can build the exact visualizations your management needs.
Why go external
GLPI's native dashboards work for operational monitoring: today's open tickets, this week's SLA compliance, current asset counts. They're real-time and role-scoped. But they have limits:
- No cross-dataset joins — you can't combine ticket data with financial data from another system
- Limited visualization types — no heatmaps, no scatter plots, no multi-axis charts
- No scheduled PDF delivery to stakeholders who don't log into GLPI
- No historical trend analysis beyond what GLPI's stats module provides
An external BI tool reads GLPI's database directly (read-only) and lets you build whatever you need.
Connecting GLPI to Metabase
Metabase is the most common pairing with GLPI because it's open source, runs on the same Linux server, and connects directly to GLPI's MariaDB/MySQL database.
Setup
- Install Metabase on the GLPI server or a dedicated reporting server
- Create a read-only MySQL user with access to the GLPI database
- Connect Metabase to the database — it auto-discovers tables and relationships
- Build queries using Metabase's visual query builder (no SQL needed for basic reports)
The key tables: glpi_tickets (ticket data), glpi_computers (hardware assets), glpi_softwarelicenses (license tracking), glpi_entities (organizational structure). Most useful reports query tickets joined with entities and categories.
Practical dashboards
- Monthly executive summary — ticket volume trend, SLA compliance by entity, top 5 incident categories, mean time to resolution
- Asset cost analysis — total cost of ownership by asset type, depreciation curves, replacement forecasts
- Capacity planning — tickets per agent over time, workload distribution, seasonal patterns
Grafana and Power BI
Grafana works best when you also have monitoring data (Zabbix, Prometheus) and want GLPI data on the same operational dashboard — incidents alongside system metrics. The setup is similar: read-only database connection, SQL queries as data sources.
Power BI is the choice when the organization already uses Microsoft 365 and management expects Excel-compatible exports. Power BI connects to MySQL via ODBC or a gateway, and from there the reporting is standard Power BI workflow.
What to watch out for
- Don't query the production database during peak hours — heavy reports can slow down GLPI. Use a read replica or schedule reports overnight.
- GLPI schema changes on upgrade — when you upgrade GLPI, table structures may change. Test your BI queries against the new schema before going live.
- Data hygiene still matters — an external BI tool makes bad data more visible, not better. If ticket categories are inconsistent in GLPI, your Metabase charts will show that inconsistency in high resolution.
Start with Metabase if you want a self-hosted, zero-cost option. Move to Power BI if your organization is Microsoft-centric. Use Grafana if you're combining ITSM data with infrastructure monitoring. All three read the same GLPI database — you're choosing the presentation layer, not the data source.