How Do I Use Business Transactions?

Business Transactions are a combined group of contiguous steps in a Real Browser script that are to be measured as a whole. These transactions logically group similar parts of a flow together, so that users can view the performance of multiple steps and page(s) grouped under one Business Transaction.

Today, Rigor measures Total Duration to run the transaction, Total Requests, and Total Content Size for each Business Transaction. Additional metrics will be added in the future.

In this article we will demonstrate how to:

• Define a Business Transaction on a Real Browser Check
• View Business Transaction results when viewing a single run of the Real Browser Check
• View Business Transaction results over time via a Report (filter and segment by BT)
• View Business Transaction results over time via a Perf KPIs (filter and segment by BT)
• Set up an alert for a Business Transaction
• Additional Notes 

Defining a Business Transaction on a Real Browser Check

Business Transactions are only available for Real Browser Checks within Rigor Monitoring. 

To define a business transaction:

1. From the main check page, click the gear icon in the top right corner and click Edit. 
2. In the Edit menu, navigate to the Steps tab
3. Enter a name for the Business Transaction for each step using the “Business Transaction” text field.
   Important Notes: 
• While it is not required, if you are using Business Transactions for a Real Browser script, it is recommended that you label every step as a best practice.
• If the name of a business transaction is changed, any historical data will not be associated with the new name.
• Take care to avoid typos in the Business Transaction names. Copy + Paste is highly recommended to avoid issues.
  
4. Click Save.

The Business Transaction will be measured the next time your check executes. If you want to test, click “Run Now”.

Viewing Business Transaction Metrics on a Single Real Browser Check Run

1. From the main Real Browser check page, click on any individual run
2. The run results page will be displayed. At the top of the page, click the tab labeled Business Transactions.
3. Here you will be able to view all your data regarding the Business Transactions for this specific run. You can view all of your transactions at once or you can drill into each transaction using the drop-down at the top of the page.
4. By clicking on a specific transaction, you can view each metric, a filmstrip, and a waterfall for just that transaction. If you click on the video, it will jump into the video at the start of that transaction.

Reporting Business Transactions using Custom Reports

1. Click Custom Reports from the left-hand navigation, and either create a report or select the report you wish to display your Business Transactions
2. Once you have selected the report you want, either Add a Panel or click the “Edit” icon as shown below to change a current panel.
3. Click + Add Checks and select the check(s) with the business transaction you would like to add to your report
4. In the configuration table, under the “Segment Runs” tab, select the box labeled Business Transactions. Segmenting by Business Transaction will change your data visualization to separate each data point by both the metrics you have selected as well as the Business Transaction related to the check. 
   
5. When this is selected, the metrics configurations for this panel will shift to only displaying metrics applicable to business transactions. The metrics that are currently available for business transactions are Duration, Request Count, Total Content Size, and Uptime / Downtime Availability. Choose the metric you would like to view.
6. If desired, you can filter your report by one or more Business Transactions as well. Choose them from the drop-down. 

Reporting Business Transactions using Performance KPI 

1. Go to any check and select the reports drop down in the top right corner of your check and click Performance KPIs
   
2. This will direct you to the performance KPI panel. To edit the Panel click  Configure Panel
3. Here you will be able to select the metrics you want to display, as well as segment and filter your Perf KPI by Business Transaction

Alerting on Business Transaction

You can set threshold monitors for your business transactions to alert you when a particular threshold is exceeded. 

To set a threshold monitor:

1. Create or edit a Real Browser Check
2. Go to the Advanced tab and add a Threshold Monitor
3. In the For box select Business Transaction
4. Select the Business Transaction you would like to alert on, the metric, threshold type, and the value you want to set
   
5. Click Save.

Additional Notes

• On most step types, Rigor will wait 2 seconds for the action to trigger a page load. It also waits 5 seconds after fully loaded to make sure that we are capturing the time to interactive metric. This is called Wait for Navigation.