Autosteps Chart Widget

Owned by Martin Moghadam
Last updated: Nov 29, 2019 by Youssef Benarab
4 min read

AutoSteps Chart makes it easy to graphically compare metrics for AutoSteps across individual computers and locations. It provides the ability to monitor end-user quality of service by delivering consistent and accurate measurement of application performance from the end-user perspective in real time.

This widget is useful to monitor AutoSteps and Web Application Transactions.

The widget can show the information about any computer or location - by measuring the exact time consumption for an end-user's PC to process business and web application transactions. AutoSteps will list all of the possible transactions that can be monitored.


The widget can show you the information about:

AutoSteps: by placing timers at the start and endpoints of the transactions, you will get an accurate understanding of the time consumed for the entire transaction including all of its logical components.
Web Applications Transactions: by setting up transaction filters for web-based applications you can gain an understanding of how often the transaction is taking place - as well as the maximum, minimum and average processing time.


Set Up the Widget

You can only do this if you're a PerformanceGuard administrator.

It's also your administrator who defines what you are able to monitor with the widget. When you're ready to add the widget to a dashboard, you simply need to add the required information in the widget setup dialog's menus.
To make AutoSteps response time measurements, you can either use:

  • AutoSteps via COM Interface
  • Autosteps via REST Interface
  • AutoSteps via BTMUtil.exe

The most common use of AutoSteps is in Citrix login scripts and scriptable application clients or inside your client application code.
The AutoSteps activities allow you to view one or more activity from three different stages (you can also select a specific task or all from the list).

Example: If you want to monitor more complex activities that involve several steps or several servers, you must specify where the activities begin and end. The most common use of AutoSteps is in Citrix login scripts and scriptable application clients or inside your client application code.


 
 
These Levels outline the structure of the AutoSteps Chart Widget with the setup parameters for the:
Level 1 > Transaction Group
Level 2 > Transaction
Level 3 > Tags
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The AutoSteps metrics allow you to view different intervals for transactions.
Example: You can add different metrics such as Response Time, Total Response Time, Availability or Requests.
Many computers and metrics in the same widget can be confusing. It's better to use multiple widgets with a few items in each.


Select what You Want to View

Your PerformanceGuard administrator has typically set up the widget to show information about AutoSteps metrics or AutoSteps activities for one or more computers or locations.

When that's the case, you can simply use the Computer or Location and Time period menus in the top part of the dashboard to view the AutoSteps metrics or activities when a particular computer or location uses it.

  • Select the Computers or Location and then select the AutoSteps activities that you want.
  • Select the AutoSteps metrics that you want.
You can select multiple computers and locations to view the Autosteps metrics across computers and locations.

Show AutoSteps monitoring

The AutoSteps Chart widget in PerformanceGuard dashboard allows you to monitor the AutoSteps activities and AutoSteps metrics of the selected computer or location.

Example: You can see a significant difference in the following image in Response Time for LoginScripts - Login_Total from 16.00 to 24.06. You can also compare the Response Time between several activities per graph.

Click thumbnail to view image in full size.

 

Analyze the AutoSteps Chart Widget with AutoSteps Job Heat Map Data

The AutoSteps Job heat Map widget together with the AutoSteps Chart widget gives you an overview of the matrix stating the latest execution of the scripts as well as showing history in the graph. You can measure a number of metrics such as response times, availability and requests from a number of different Executors.

When you hover over a point on the graph you will see the properties and results of the scheduled jobs - giving you a snapshot of an exact moment in time across your metrics. These AutoSteps records can be used to show overall status information for the AutoSteps Job Heat Map as well as status information of individual jobs.

The graph provides you with a rich set of diagnostic data to identify and measure areas to improve. If it spikes at regular intervals or follow a certain pattern, this may indicate performance problems on Backend, web application servers or application dependency servers due to overhead incurred when running scheduled jobs.

Lower response time and fewer requests = Better experience

Each series displays a snapshot of your latest execution of the scripts at that particular point of time.

"More requests" means longer load time and a long load time can be a disruptive and frustrating experience for the users. Thus the graph allows you to compare the actual measured values under different script executions and can get alerted to issues before users notice them.

The both widgets together provides a great flexibility and allows you to retrieve data specific to their needs by creating/adding customs scripts.

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