Catchpoint's Insight feature lets you capture custom metrics based on any information that is included in the header or response content. For example, if you have a test that performs a search on the Google search page, you could capture the time elapsed generating the search results using an indicator.
Catchpoint supports two types of insight metrics: Indicators and Tracepoints.
Indicators capture numerical values, and Tracepoints capture strings.
How Do Insights Work?
Catchpoint retrieves Insight data from the HTTP response using regular expressions. Regular expression matching allows you to create wildcard formulas that specify which key or variable to retrieve and the format to expect for that data. You can also use the Match Header Key option to retrieve the value for an HTTP response header key-value pair, and Catchpoint will create the regular expression for you.
Insight Tracepoints and Indicators can be retrieved from either the HTTP response header or from the HTTP response content. HTTP response content includes any textual information received from the page's server, such as the HTML, CSS, or Javascript that make up the page content. You cannot use Catchpoint Insight to retrieve non-text information, such as images.
Configuration
Creating Insight Metrics
To create Insight metrics, navigate to Settings > Insight, locate the first blank Tracepoint or Indicator row, depending on the type of insight you want to configure, and complete the fields.
- Name - a unique name identifying this insight metric
- Token - a unique token which you will reference in your test configuration.
- Status - defines whether the insight is active or inactive.
- HTTP Section - specifies whether the metric value will be found in the header or the content of the HTTP response.
- Match Header Key - use to extract the value associated with a specific header key.
- Include Children - in addition to checking the response from the primary URL, look at the responses to child requests.
- Format - a regular expression specifying the format of the data to be extracted, or Header Key name if Match Header Key is enabled.
- JSON - enable if data is JSON formatted.
- Content Type (Indicator only) - specifies the type of numerical value being captured so that the value can be scaled correctly:
- Counter
- Number
- Second
- Microsecond
Enabling Insights on a Test
Insight can be implemented for various types of tests, including:
- API
- FTP
- HTML
- SMTP
- SSH
- TCP
- Web
To activate Insight for a specific test, go to the Test's Properties, locate the Insights section, and choose Override. Then select one or more insights that you want this test to collect.
You can enable Insights in an Instant Test and look at the waterfall results to make sure that it is properly working before enabling on a scheduled test.
Making Use of Insights
Insight Data Analysis
Once the test is running, you can view Insight data in the "Analysis" module. Indicators are included with other numerical metrics, and Tracepoints are found in the filtering section to the left of the chart.
Note: For multi-step tests (Playwright, Puppeteer, etc.) if you don't filter by a specific step, Indicator metrics will be averaged across all steps.
Alerts
You can generate Alerts based on values captured in an Insight.
Reports
You can also include Insight data in a Report.
