Examining metrics in depth
Last updated
Last updated
Hover the mouse cursor over a figure in a widget to get the value of the represented metric with improved precision and, in some cases, with extra information inside a pop-up speech bubble. In the same speech bubble, find up to two options for examining the metric in depth:
Show details (count metrics only)
Investigate in Finder
When displaying the values of count metrics in a dashboard, you may be interested in knowing which objects are behind the numbers. For any figure in a dashboard that represents a count metric, it is possible to see the objects that added up to the total. The list of these objects is called the details of the metric. If you selected grouping options or additional display fields when creating your metric, they are displayed in the details.
If you want to go deeper in your investigations and you are a user with access to the Finder, you have the possibility to drill-down directly from the widget representation of a metric to the Finder. This works with any kind of metric and not just with count metrics. When drilling-down from the Portal to the Finder, the Finder generates and runs a new investigation on the fly that keeps as much contextual information as possible to recreate the same conditions found in the Portal. Once in the Finder, you can modify the generated investigation, find relations with other objects and activities, and analyze the results with the full potential of the Finder.
Hover the mouse cursor over the displayed values in a KPI, table, or bar chart widget to bring up a speech bubble that displays the same value, but with higher precision whenever possible. In addition, get the variation with respect to its previous value, even if the widget was configured not to display the variation. For instance, the speech bubble below displays an additional decimal digit and the variation of the following KPI widget:
In the case of values that represent a count ratio, the speech bubble displays not only the ratio with higher precision, but also the number of involved objects. For example, in the bar chart below, see the precise ratio of Windows laptops, the variation of the ratio with respect to its previous value, and the number of Windows laptops with respect to the total number of devices in the speech bubble:
To display the details of a count metric from a dashboard:
Find in the dashboard a widget (KPI, table, or bar chart) that displays the metric. It is not possible to show the details of a metric from a line chart.
Hover the mouse over the figure. A small speech bubble shows up.
Click Show details in the bubble. The list of the objects that added up to the count metric is displayed.
Optional: If the list of objects is too big to fit in the dialog, use the controls at the bottom left of the dialog to move through pages. There is a limit to the maximum number of objects that the Portal can display in the details. If the limit is reached, the dialog indicates it with an appropriate message.
Optional: Click the arrow link with the label CSV at the bottom right corner of the window to export the list as a CSV file.
Click OK once you are done to close the dialog and return to the dashboard.
In table widgets, if you have grouped the results of the count metric, you get exactly the list of objects that correspond to the clicked figure, according to the grouping options.
Note that service dashboards do not have the option to display details. Showing the details is only available in dashboards based on metrics.
By default, the Portal stores the details of count metrics for the current day, week, month, and quarter. To keep historical data for previous periods, reserve additional disk space for the Portal.
As a prerequisite for drilling-down to the Finder, ensure that the address of the Portal is correctly configured, in the same way as needed for updating the Finder.
To drill-down from the Portal to the Finder for investigating the results of a metric in detail:
Log in to the Portal as a user with Finder access from a machine that has the Finder properly installed.
Locate in a dashboard the KPI, table, or bar chart widget that holds the value of the metric that you want to analyze with the help of the Finder. Line charts do not support drilling-down to the Finder.
Hover the mouse over the value of interest. A speech bubble shows up.
Alternatively, display the details of a count metric and hover the mouse over the name of an object in the list. A speech bubble also appears.
Click the link Investigate in Finder inside the bubble.
If the value of the metric in the Portal is aggregated from several Engines, a dialog displays the list of related Engines.
Click the name of the Engine to which the Finder must connect.
The Finder opens a view related to the metric, based on the contextual information taken from the Portal.
The contextual information partially determines what you see in the Finder when it opens. The context includes:
The type of metric that you are drilling-down from.
The group by options of the metric.
The current node of the hierarchy that you are viewing in the Portal.
The current time frame in the Portal.
These are the results that you get in the Finder, according to the type of metric from which you drill-down:
When drilling-down from the value of a count metric (total or ratio), the Finder runs an investigation that returns the list of counted objects.
When drilling-down from the value of an quantity metric, the Finder runs an investigation on devices and displays the results in a list. The list is ordered by the aggregate that defines the quantity.
When drilling-down from the name of an object in either a top metric or in the details of a count metric, the behavior of the Finder depends on the kind of object selected:
If the object is a device, the Finder opens its device view.
If the object is a user, the Finder opens its user view.
For any other kind of object, the Finder runs an investigation that returns a list with the object as the single result.
The results in the Finder include the context of the Portal:
If any group by options are specified in the definition of the metric, the Finder includes them in the results of the executed investigation (not applicable to drilling-down to the device or user views).
The results of the investigations are limited to the node of the hierarchy viewed in the Portal: they are transformed into a condition on a set of entities (not applicable to the device or user views).
The date of the investigation run in the Finder matches the date viewed in the Portal (the time frame must be bounded to one single day, see limits below).
In some cases, when drilling-down from the Portal to the Finder, it is possible to get inconsistencies between the results displayed in the Finder and the values observed in the Portal. To deal with those situations, the Finder highlights a warning message in the top of the view that explains the reason for the possible differences.
The data retention period in the Engine is shorter than in the Portal. When drilling-down to the Finder, the Engine may have already lost the history of the data requested if the date selected in the Portal lies too far in the past. The Finder displays the following message:There is no data or only partial data in the Engine for the time frame you have requested (time frame). The oldest historical data in the Engine dates from date.
This case occurs when the values displayed in the Portal are aggregated from multiple Engines. When displaying the results in the Finder, only the results of one Engine are available; therefore, inconsistencies may arise. The Finder displays the warning:The data displayed in the Portal is taken from multiple Engines. The results shown below are only for the Engine name Engine.
If the selected time frame in the Portal is longer than one day (that is, the time frame is a week, a month, or a quarter), the Finder ignores the time frame and displays the results for today. The reason lies in that the Portal aggregates the results of every metric daily, adding them up to make the total for the time frame selected. That is different from launching an investigation that aggregates results over the whole time frame. The warning message in the Finder reads:The weekly/monthly/quarterly data displayed in the Portal cannot be retrieved in the Finder. The results shown below are for today.
Some metrics are based on values for which the Engine does not keep a historical record. The Portal, however, keeps track of what their value actually was when it made its daily compute. This is in fact similar to the limitation that you get when you want to compute metrics for dates in the past. The Finder displays the message:The data displayed below may differ from what is available in Portal as object properties and categories may have changed since the metric was computed.
When viewing a widget that displays a count metric that counts all objects (active and inactive), the time frame in the the Portal must be of one day (choosing any other time frame disables the widget). If you drill down to the Finder, the time frame in the Finder changes to the full available period for better reflecting the results seen in the Portal. The Finder warns you about the change of time frame with the following message:Time frame changed: these results go from the oldest available date in the Engine (date) to now (date).
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