4 Working with KPI Overviews and Alert Lists

This chapter describes the use of KPI overviews. It explains how you can control their appearance, and drill-down through them for more information about their underlying KPIs and generated alerts. The use of alert lists is also explained.

4.1 KPI Overviews

You can see the current status of the defined KPIs and SLAs by clicking KPI overview. This provides a snapshot of the current Web site activities in a format that is both intuitive and insightful. An example is shown in Figure 4-1.

Figure 4-1 Example KPI Overview

Description of "Figure 4-1 Example KPI Overview"

The overview provides a ready summary of the current status of the KPIs and SLAs within a particular category. You are free to configure your categories to reflect your organization's specific requirements, with each category containing relevant performance indicators. For example, you could have separate categories for such things as availability issues, performance, visitor traffic, and other specific aspects of your organization's operations.

4.1.1 Viewing KPI Overviews

To see the defined categories, select KPI Overview, and then Overview. The Overview category is a special viewing category that provides the highest level view of your KPIs. It gives both an instant summary of all the other KPI categories, and access to their individual KPIs by drilling-down through the displayed information.

To view a specific KPI category, click the required category. Alternatively, right click it, and select either Open or Open in a new window from the menu. This last option is especially useful for viewing the graphs in a full-screen display, or for viewing several KPI categories at the same time through resized and aligned windows.

4.1.2 Presentation Style

Two types of KPI overview presentation are available: meters and graphs. Figure 4-1 is an example of a meter overview. This style provides an analog meter view of the selected KPIs. For a more detailed representation, with information about the KPI over the last 90 minutes, a graph style is available. An example is shown in Figure 4-2:

Figure 4-2 Example Graphic Overview

Description of "Figure 4-2 Example Graphic Overview"

To select your preferred presentation style, select Presentation style from the KPI overview menu, and the preferred style.

4.1.3 Zooming In and Out

Within the graph presentation style, you can zoom in and out to view the displayed graphs over a longer period of time. Depending on the historical information that is available, you can zoom out to hourly and daily levels. Note the graph style automatically changes from a bar chart to a line chart. An example is shown in Figure 4-3.

Figure 4-3 Zooming in on a KPI

Description of "Figure 4-3 Zooming in on a KPI"

4.1.4 KPIs and Targets

You can select Include KPIs without targets from the KPI overview menu to include or exclude KPIs without defined targets from the currently displayed category. Note that any targets that have been set for a KPI are shown in the graph presentation, with the minimum target running from the 0-reference line up to the set minimum target, and the maximum target running from the top of the KPI graph down to the set maximum target. An example is shown in Figure 4-3.

In addition, the following color scheme is used within graphs to provide information about targets:

Blue: the KPI does not have any set targets.
Green: the KPI was within a set target for the period (5 minutes).
Red: the KPI was outside its set target for the period (5 minutes).

An example is shown in Figure 4-4.

Figure 4-4 Color Coding in Graphs

Description of "Figure 4-4 Color Coding in Graphs"

4.1.5 Drilling-down Through Overviews

An overview is a summary of the KPIs within a category, and within each overview, you can drill-down into further information about the underlying KPIs by right clicking the KPI title and using the menu shown in Figure 4-5:

Figure 4-5 Drilling-down in Overviews

Description of "Figure 4-5 Drilling-down in Overviews"

The following options are available:

View alert history: opens a window highlighting the alerts that have been generated for the selected KPI. This is explained in Section 4.1.6, "Working With Alert Logs".
Edit: allows you to modify the definition of the KPI. The settings are fully explained in Section 5.2, "Defining KPIs and SLAs".
Rename: allows you to rename or move the selected KPI to another category.
Copy: allows you to copy the selected KPI. This is useful when you want to use an existing KPI as the basis for a new one. See Section 5.2.2, "Copying Existing KPIs" for more information.

4.1.6 Working With Alert Logs

Click the required KPI, or select View alert history option from the menu, to open a window detailing the alert notifications that have been generated for the KPI. An example is shown in Figure 4-6.

Figure 4-6 Example Alert Log

Description of "Figure 4-6 Example Alert Log"

Information about specific alerts is available by clicking the appropriate alert. This provides information such as the persons notified in the alert and notification methods. It is based on the underlying alert profile, described in Section 5.5, "Defining Alert Schedules".

4.2 Working With Alert Lists

You can select KPI overview and then Alerts to view a complete list of all the alerts generated when KPIs moved outside their required ranges. For example, the number of visitors to your Home page fell to less than 100 per hour. An example is shown in Figure 4-7:

Figure 4-7 Example Alert List

Description of "Figure 4-7 Example Alert List"

The icons shown in the left-hand side of alert list are explained in Figure 4-8.

Figure 4-8 Alert List Icons

Description of "Figure 4-8 Alert List Icons"

4.2.1 Filtering Alerts

You can use the controls above the alerts list to limit the displayed list. You can filter on a specific KPI, month, day, or hour. This is shown in Figure 4-9:

Figure 4-9 Filter Alerts

Description of "Figure 4-9 Filter Alerts"

4.2.2 Viewing Alerts

You can click an alert in the displayed list to view its details. An example is shown in Figure 4-10.

Figure 4-10 Alert Details

Description of "Figure 4-10 Alert Details"

This shows that the alert concerns the number of page views per minute for the Dutch market. The KPI has a range of 20 - 100 page views per minute, but this has fallen to 5. The Text message tab lists the users who were notified and the contact information used. Following notification, the appropriate staff members can start to research possible causes for the drop in client traffic.