Foglight APM for Real User Experience 5.9.11

You can customize the layout of the Transactions dashboard by selecting the appropriate options in the Tile Display Options dialog box. Use these options to control the total number of tiles, the order in which they appear, and the rollup options for multiple FTR locations (if applicable).


	NOTE: These settings apply on a per-user basis.

To configure display options:

With the APM > Transactions dashboard open in the display area, open the action panel on the right side of the browser interface.

Click Tile Display Options.

The Tile Display Options dialog box opens.

Figure 8. Tile Display Options dialog box

Configure the following options, as required.

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The Enable Grouping option groups user tiles together by transaction name. By default, groups are sorted by their severity first, then by their name. This grouping is not affected by the Sort Order options.

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The Show at most n tiles or groups setting determines the total number of tiles displayed. Synthetic transaction locations are first rolled up using the rollup criteria below. After that, the total number of tiles is determined by the maximum number of tiles that you specify.

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You can roll up synthetic transactions locations into multi-location FTR (Synthetics) tiles based on the criteria below, in the following order:

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the maximum number of single-location Synthetics tiles, using the Rollup if there are more than n FTR tiles setting, and then

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the maximum number of locations per script, using the When there are more than n location(s) for a script setting.

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Use the Sort Order options to sort the tiles by either type (Real End Users first) or alarm severity (Sort by Alarm State).

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For example, you can configure the Transactions tab to display a maximum of ten tiles sorted by the alarm state (highest severity first).

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The Show Transaction Pivots option controls whether transaction pivots are displayed. If you do not want to see Pivot tiles, clear this check box.

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The Rollup Pivots option controls whether pivot data are grouped together or rendered individually. For example, Foglight can roll up all pivots such as Chrome™, Firefox®, Internet Explorer®, and Opera™ into a single web browsers pivot tile.

Click Save.

The Tile Display Options dialog box closes and the Transactions dashboard refreshes, reflecting the updated display options.

Viewing Real User Activity from a Geographical Perspective

The Geographical Perspective dashboard displays the real user activity for a selected transaction based on performance problems and errors, total traffic, response time, and other factors. The default view provides a summary for the top 100 locations for the selected transaction. A list of performance-related measurements (such as, “Show locations with the most: Hits” or “Show locations with the highest: Hit Response Times”) help you find performance patterns and problems with geographical features.


	NOTE: If the Geographical Perspectives dashboard shows the message “There is no data to display,” an APM Administrator needs to update hit analyzers to populate the map with data. For more information, see “Publishing hit metrics for use in the Geographical Perspective dashboard” in the Foglight APM Administration and Configuration Guide.

Figure 9. Geographical Perspective for Admin dashboard


	TIP: This example uses transaction data collected by Foglight APM. If you are using FxV, the appearance of this dashboard (for example, aggregations) is slightly different. The overall functionality is the same. For information on how to populate this dashboard with data from FxV, see Appendix: Enabling End User Transactions from FxM and FxV.

The Geographical Perspective dashboard is divided into three panes. The pane on the left contains lists of: available aggregation types, timeslices, and measurements. The center pane displays either a map, if the Map tab is selected, or a list of results in a tabular format, if the List tab is selected. The pane on the right provides graphical results from the measurements, and the option to drill down for more information.


	NOTE: If you are using a version 5.6.4 Management Server, only the List tab is available. The Map tab requires Management Server 5.6.5 or later. If you are using Internet Explorer® (IE) 8 or earlier, only the List tab is available.

To view real end user activity in a geographical perspective:

On the navigation panel, under Dashboards, click APM > Geographical Perspective.

Select a transaction from the Transactions list at the bottom of the navigation panel.

Figure 10. Navigation panel showing a list of Transactions

The dashboard display updates.

On the left side of the dashboard, select an Aggregation Type: top ten by city, country, or region.

Select a Measurement from the list to view the related transaction data. The map and right pane update based on your selection.

For example: select Show locations with the highest: Page Response Times.

Figure 11. Showing locations with the highest: Page Response Times

The map updates to indicate the locations that are experiencing the highest average page response times in the selected timeslice. The right pane displays a chart of the page processing time for the entire transaction (all locations), and the top five locations are listed in a table below the graph and timeslice selector.

Double-click anywhere on the map to zoom in on that location. You can also use the zoom tool in the map pane to zoom in or out. You can move the map in any direction by clicking and holding the left mouse button and dragging the cursor.

The fill-level of each pin on the map shows how close that location is to the maximum value in the current timeslice. In this example, Seattle has the highest response time, so its pin appears full.

Select a timeslice from the Timeslice list, or use the forward or back arrows to step through the available timeslices.


	TIP: The vertical blue bar on the graph indicates the currently selected timeslice.

Click Transaction Detail (in the lower right corner of the right pane) to open the Summary view for the transaction. For more information about this view, see Real User (APM) Performance detail view.

Hover your cursor over a pin to open a quick view of metrics for that location.

Figure 12. Metrics for a selected location

Click a pin to view a graph of the average page response time for that location in the right pane.

Figure 13. Select a city to see its response times

Click Location Detail to drill down to detailed information for the selected location.

Figure 14. Detailed information for a selected location

The Location Detail view provides a table of measurements in context that helps you understand how the selected location is behaving relative to other locations during the selected timeslice and aggregation period.

Measurements for the selected location are sorted in order of severity.

The value in the Highest Rank column indicates the highest ranking that the selected location attained at any point during the selected time range. The time range may span multiple timeslices. For example, at some time during the selected time range, Seattle had the highest page response time of all locations. Therefore, for the measurement Page Response Time, Seattle’s Highest Rank is 1 (first).

The value in the Current Rank column indicates the selected location’s current ranking for the selected timeslice. This may or may not be the same as its highest rank, depending on when the peak value for the location occurred. In this example, Seattle is ranked second for the Current Rank for Bandwidth Usage. That is, during the currently selected timeslice, Seattle has the second highest page response time.

Click any location’s name in either the Similar Locations list or the Top Ranked Location column to open a detail view for that location for comparison.

To view the transaction data for the selected location in the appliance, click More Details.

The Search Hits page opens. From here, you can continue your investigation using the Foglight APM Search dashboards. For more information, see the Foglight APM User Guide.

Generating geographical perspective reports

There are a number of reports specific to geographic perspectives for FxM transactions. For example, you can generate reports on top locations by errors and violations, by response time, or by user volume.


	NOTE: The Top Locations by... reports are only available for FxM transactions.

To access these reports:

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Click Reports at the top right corner of the Geographical Perspectives dashboard.

Figure 15. The Reports menu

The report wizard prompts you to specify the input parameters (such as time range, application, and granularity) and properties (such as report name and export format). You can also schedule the report to run at regular intervals.

Assessing real user experiences during key sequences

Sequences enable you to assess the experiences of your real users as they navigate a series of predefined steps within your web site or application. Using the aggregated data in the tiles on the Sequence Explorer dashboard, you can identify trends in how users navigated a selected sequence.


	NOTE: APM Administrators define the sequences that appear in the Sequence Explorer. For more information, see “Introducing sequence analyzers” in the Foglight APM Administration and Configuration Guide.

You can use sequences for the following kinds of situations:

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For a commercial web application, a shopping sequence may reveal that fewer shoppers than expected purchased the objects in their shopping cart. By drilling down on the tile with the most exits, you can analyze the hits that occurred within the sequence. You may find that shoppers became frustrated with the time it took for the checkout page to load.

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For an intranet timesheet application, a timesheet update sequence may show that a significant number of employees abandoned an update at the same step. On further investigation, you may find that the affected employees received error pages.

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Part of developing web sites and applications includes identifying the critical paths within the application and optimizing the performance of those workflows. You can use sequences to monitor performance of those workflows over time and alert when problems arise.

You can perform the following tasks:

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Introducing the Sequence Explorer dashboard

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Investigating sequence activity