Request charting is a feature that allows the performance of specific requests to be charted separately. Requests can be grouped by the entire URL, "contains", "starts with", and/or regex.
Since the data is analyzed in realtime by scanning all waterfalls in the time-frame, we recommend viewing up to three days of data at a time.
To enable request charting, first, select Request as one of the breakdowns.
Then, click on the Filter option under Request Data and select Requests from the subsource filters as shown below.
Once the Request button is clicked, a new window appears. The window displays the first 200 requests for the last 24 hours.
To search for specific requests, select a search type from the drop-down (Starts with, Contains, Regex, or Exact) and then type a search string into the text field. To retrieve the results, either hit the Enter key or click the magnifying glass icon within the text field.
If the requests include multiple to the same URL with varying query strings, you can use the Show Query option to display each request separately. If this option is unchecked, it will combine all individual requests containing the same URL before a query string into a group. 
Once the search has been completed, you will see the matching requests within the requests selector. It is now possible to select the individual requests to chart by clicking the radio button to the left of the request, or select all by clicking the radio button above all requests. It is also possible to chart the search criteria into a single request within the Performance Module by selecting the Chart search criteria as a single request radio button within the dialog window. After selecting all or individual matching requests, click the Add button to add them to the performance chart module.
When viewing Request Charting, you can also use the various otehr settings, metrics, dimensions, and breakdowns available in performance charts.
The metrics available are:
- DNS (ms)
- Connect (ms)
- SSL (ms)
- Send (ms)
- Wait (ms)
- Load (ms)
- Response (ms)
- Server Response (ms)
Please note: Scatterplot graphs will show red error diamond for requests that have an alert or error message associated with them. Examples include 4xx and 5xx Error Codes, Transaction script verb errors, and 12017 messages for canceled requests or connection failures.
When to use Request Charting?
Request Charting is a feature that allows the performance of specific requests to be charted within Catchpoint. These requests can be grouped by the exact URL, contains, starts with, or regex.
It allows for drill down to a single element without the need to configure a zone, and unlike the hosts' chart, which allows you to only see everything from a single host, request charting helps you to quickly trend on any single request or element.
Using Hosts and Zones Over Request charting
While Request charting can help chart individual requests, a single request can actually belong to multiple Zones. Also, it only allows for charting a specific list of metrics listed previously in the article.
The date range available for Request Charting is comparatively smaller. Because the data is analyzed in real-time by scanning all waterfalls in the time frame, it is recommended to look at data from up to three days at a time. If you select a longer time frame, only the first 200 unique requests will be displayed.
Zones and Hosts, on the other hand, do not have a time limitation and support additional metrics such as Bottleneck Time, Availability, Content Load Errors and many other metrics specified here.
When looking to segregate content from primary host against third-party content, enabling hosts and configuring zones will allow you to understand and troubleshoot issues with native, third party and CDN content as appropriate.
Note: Hosts and zones need to be enabled in test properties, whereas Request Charting does not. Request Charting must be enabled in the client settings which can be done by reaching out to the Catchpoint Support team.