Recommended configuration for synthetic monitoring

BMC strongly recommends configuring the BMC Synthetic End User Experience Monitoring system to increase the effectiveness of filters and the grouping of results. The recommended configuration provides following benefits:

• Names of elements such as Execution Plans and TEA Agent Groups are displayed
• All related synthetic objects are grouped into sessions
• Session details are displayed in the Session Browser or in the Session Overview pages

This topic contains a description of the recommended settings for synthetic monitoring. Configure the system manually if you have a working system to which you want to add synthetic monitoring.

Perform all configurations in the Real User Analyzer or Monitor. You can adjust the recommended or automatic configuration to suit you and your organization's requirements.

• • Watchpoints for synthetic transactions
  • Watchpoint filters for synthetic data
  • Custom error-detection rules
  • Session termination rule
  • Custom fields
  • Extraction rules on existing system custom fields
  • Related topics

Watchpoints for synthetic transactions

Define page Watchpoints (Administration >  Watchpoint Management > Available Watchpoints) to enable detailed monitoring of the performance and availability for all synthetic transactions.

Watchpoints configuration for synthetic transactions

Watchpoint filters for synthetic data

Add filters to the Watchpoint filter library (Administration > Watchpoint management > Filter library) to help further filter synthetic transactions.

Filter configuration for synthetic transactions

Custom error-detection rules

Create custom error-detection rules (Administration > Thresholds and problem detection > Error detection rules) to notify you about synthetic transactions with availability errors, accuracy errors, or execution errors.

Error-detection rule configuration for synthetic transactions

Use the Move up and Move down arrows to ensure that the new rules appear before the first rule with a Stop match policy, as shown in the following image.

Example of the synthetic error-detection rules above the first Stop match policy

^{Click to enlarge image.}

Session termination rule

Create session termination rules (Administration > Data flow settings > Session detection, click Termination rules) to define the conditions under which the system considers a session ended. For synthetic monitoring, each run of an Execution Plan is a session.

Session termination rule configuration for synthetic transactions

Example of session termination rule

^{Click to enlarge image.}

Custom fields

Add object custom fields (Administration > Data flow settings > Custom fields) and add an extraction rule to capture page data that you can later use in error-detection rules and other system entities. Create the following custom fields:

• Synthetic Accuracy Errors
• Synthetic Availability Errors
• Synthetic Execution Status

Page custom field and extraction rule configuration for Synthetic Accuracy Errors

Example of custom field and extraction rule for Synthetic Accuracy Errors

^{Click to enlarge image.}

Page custom field and extraction rule configuration for Synthetic Availability Errors

Example of custom field and extraction rule for Synthetic Availability Errors

^{Click to enlarge image.}

Page custom field and extraction rule configuration for Synthetic Execution Status

Example of custom field and extraction rule for Synthetic Execution Status

^{Click to enlarge image.}

Extraction rules on existing system custom fields

Add an extraction rule to custom fields (Administration > Data flow settings > Custom fields) to determine the POST parameter within a page that contributes its data to the field. Add rules to the following existing system custom fields:

• Group ID is a session custom field. The added rule enables the Session Browser to display the name of the Execution Plan in the Group ID column of the page.
• User ID is a session custom field. The added rule enables the Session Browser to display the name of the TEA Agent Group in the User ID column of the page.
• Application Name is a page custom field. The added rule enables the name of the Execution Plan to be displayed as an Application. You can use the name of the Execution Plan to create Application Watchpoints for monitoring through the BMC Application Management Console.
• Page Name is a page custom field. The added rule enables the name of the synthetic transaction to be displayed as a page name according to the following syntax:
  • Overall transaction: executionPlan---transactionName
  • Custom timer or page timer: executionPlan---transactionName---timer

Extraction rule configuration for Group ID field

Example of extraction rule for Group ID

^{Click to enlarge image.}

Extraction rule configuration for User ID field

Example of extraction rule for User ID

^{Click to enlarge image.}

Extraction rule configuration for Application Name field

Example of extraction rule for Application Name

^{Click to enlarge image.}

Extraction rule configuration for Page Name field

Example of extraction rule for Page Name

^{Click to enlarge image.}

Related topics

Synthetic-transaction-configuration-workflow

Implementing-Synthetic-Device-Configuration-Pack

Monitoring-synthetic-transactions-to-predict-application-health-and-user-experience