Top Changes Report

Use this report to assess the top rate of change of measures during the chosen time period. This report helps administrators identify whether the rate of change detected for the chosen measure was gradual? or sporadic? or had occurred gradually over a period of time?

To generate this report, do the following:

  1. Select the Top Changes option by following the menu sequence: REPORTS BY FUNCTION -> Analytical Reports -> Analysis of Rate of Changes.

  2. Figure 1 will then appear.

    Figure 1 : Generating the Top Changes report

  3. Here, select a criterion for analysis from the Analyze By list box. Using this report, you can analyze the changes tracked on one/more components, or those that are part of a zone or service or segment. The options provided by the Analyze By list box are discussed hereunder:

    • Component: Select this option to choose the component(s) from across all the managed components in the environment.
    • Service: If you want to generate a report for one/more components involved in the delivery of a service, select the Service option from Analyze By, and then pick the required Service from the drop-down list that appears
    • Segment: If you want to generate a report for one/more chosen components that belong to a segment, select the Segment option from Analyze By list box, and then pick the Segment from the drop-down list that appears.
    • Group: If you want to generate a report for one/more chosen components that belong to a group, select the Group option from Analyze By list box, and then pick the Group from the drop-down list that appears.
    • Zone: To generate a report for one/more components that are included in a zone, pick the Zone option. A Zone drop-down list will then appear, from which you would have to select the zone to which the components of interest to you belong. A Sub zone flag also appears. Indicate whether the components present within the sub-zones of the chosen zone are also to be to be considered for report generation, by setting the Sub zone flag to Yes.
  4. Next, pick a component type for which the report is to be generated from the Component Type list. By default, All Component Types option is chosen from this list.
  5. In the Components list box, all the components pertaining to the chosen Component Type will be listed. Select the component for which this report is to be generated. If the Components list consists of too many components, then viewing all the components and selecting the ones you need for report generation could require endless scrolling. To avoid this, you can click the Components button next to the Components list. A Components pop up window will then appear using which you can view almost all the components in a single interface and Select the ones to be included in this report. You can narrow your search further by using the Search text box. Specify the whole/part of the component name to search for in this text box, and click the icon next to it.

  6. By default, the report provides the details of only the Top-500 changes captured for the chosen Component. You can choose a different top-n / last-n option from the Show Top list, if need be.

  7. By default, the By Week option is chosen from the Rate of Change list indicating that the generated report considers the changes in the measures that were captured for the chosen component on a week on week basis. If you wish to generate the report based on a day or month, then you can pick the By Day or By Month options respectively.

  8. Then, specify the Timeline for the report. You can either provide a fixed time line such as 1 hour, 2 days, etc., or select the Any option from the list to provide a From and To date/time for report generation.

    Note:

    For every user registered with the eG Enterprise, the administrator can indicate the maximum timeline for which that user can generate a report. Once the maximum timeline is set for a user, then, whenever that user logs into eG Reporter and attempts to generate a report, the Timeline list box in the report page will display options according to the maximum timeline setting of that user. For instance, if a user can generate a report for a maximum period of 3 days only, then 3 days will be the highest option displayed in the Timeline list - i.e., 3 days will be the last option in the fixed Timeline list. Similarly, if the user chooses the Any option from the Timeline list and proceeds to provide a start date and end date for report generation using the From and To specifications, eG Enterprise will first check if the user’s Timeline specification conforms to his/her maximum timeline setting. If not, report generation will fail. For instance, for a user who is allowed to generate reports spanning over a maximum period of 3 days only, the difference between the From and To dates should never be over 3 days. If it is, then, upon clicking the Run Report button a message box will appear, prompting the user to change the From and To specification.

  9. In addition to the settings discussed above, this report comes with a set of default specifications. These settings are hidden by default. If you do not want to disturb these default settings, then you can proceed to generate the report by clicking the Run Report button soon after you pick the criteria for generating the report. However, if you want to view and then alter these settings (if required), click on the button. The default settings will then appear in the MORE OPTIONS drop down window (see Figure 2). The steps below discuss each of these settings and how they can be customized.

    Figure 2 : The default settings for generating the Top Changes report

  10. By default, eG Enterprise computes trend for a measure using the Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum and Percentile values. This report by default, will be generated based on the Average and 95th Percentile values of the trend computation done for the measures. Therefore, the Average and 95th % option is chosen from the Changes based on list. If you wish to generate the report based on the average value obtained from the trend computation or the 95th Percentile value, then, pick the Average option or the 95th % option respectively, from this list.

  11. By default, the rate of change (ROC) of measure values are computed based on the Average and Absolute trend computation for the measures over a period of time. Therefore, the Average and Absolute option is chosen by default from the ROC based on list. If the Average option is chosen, the rate of change of the measure is computed based on the average measure value obtained on a daily basis over a period of time. If the Absolute option is chosen, the trend computation of the measures at the start and end of the chosen period of time is alone considered and the resultant value is used for generating the rate of change of each measure in the generated report.
  12. By default, 10 is specified in the Consider changes above (%) text box indicating that this report will be generated only for those measures with a rate of change above 10%. However, you can alter this value according to your needs.

  13. Next, indicate the report Time Period.

    Note:

    By default, the Time Period is set to 24 hours. Accordingly, the From and To parameters in the [timeframe] section of the eg_report.ini file (in the <eG_INSTALL_DIR>\manager\config directory) are set to 00:00 and 24:00 respectively. If need be, you can override this default setting by configuring a different timeframe against the From and/or To parameters.

  14. In large environments, reports generated using months of data can take a long time to complete. Administrators now have the option of generating reports on-line or in the background. When a report is scheduled for background generation, administrators can proceed with their other monitoring, diagnosis, and reporting tasks, while the eG manager is processing the report. This saves the administrator valuable time. To schedule background processing of a report, you can either select the Background Save - PDF option or the Background Save - CSV option from the Report Generation list. In this case, a Report Name text box will appear, where you would have to provide the name with which the report is to be saved in the background. To process reports in the foreground, select the Foreground Generation - HTML option from this list.

    Note:

    • The Report Generation list will appear only if the EnableBackgroundReport flag in the [BACKGROUND_PROCESS] section of the eg_report.ini file (in the [EG_INSTALL_DIR]\manager\config directory) is set to Yes.
    • The default selection in the Report Generation list will change according to the Timeline specified for the report. If the Timeline set is greater than or equal to the number of days specified against the MinDurationForReport parameter in the [BACKGROUND_PROCESS] section of the eg_report.ini file, then the default selection in the Report Generation list will be Background. On the other hand, if the Timeline set for the report is lesser than the value of the MinDurationForReport parameter, then the default selection in the Report Generation list will be Foreground. This is because, the MinDurationForReport setting governs when reports are to be processed in the background. By default, this parameter is set to 2 weeks - this indicates that by default, reports with a timeline of 2 weeks and above will be processed in the background.

  15. Click the Done button if any changes were made to the More Options drop down window.

  16. Finally, click on the Run Report button to generate the report.

  17. If the Report Generation list is Foreground Generation - HTML, then, clicking on the Run Report button will invoke Figure 3.

    Figure 3 : The generated Top Changes report

  18. The generated report (see Figure 3) contains the following sections:

    • The Summary section reveals the count of total rate of changes that had occurred in the target environment over a period of time. This section also offers an at a glance view on the count of rate of changes that were of high, medium and low change priorities. Using this section, administrators can instantly identify which type of rate of change priority has occurred the most over a period of time in the target environment - is it high? or medium? or low?

    • The next section reveals a detailed analysis of Top-N/Last-N rate of changes that had occurred over a period of time. The Top-N/Last N value is determined based on the Show Top list in the report generation criteria (see Figure 1). By default, this table will reveal a detailed analysis of Top 500 changes. For every component / test / measures/ descriptor combination, this table reveals the rate of change of the measure value based on trend computation. The change percentage is displayed alongside a progress bar that is color coded based on the priority assigned to the rate of change. An increasing and decreasing trend is displayed using an up or down arrow preceding the rate of change. The PERIOD column of the table displays how the trend of the measure was computed over the chosen period of time. The below table explains the abbreviations listed in this column.

      Value

      Description

      DC

      The daily ROC computation based on 95th percentile.

      DCA

      The daily ROC computation based on average value.

      WC

      The weekly absolute ROC data based on 95th Percentile.

      WCA

      The average rate of change of DC computation for a week.

      WCSA

      The weekly absolute ROC data based on average trend data.

      WCASA

      The average rate of change of DCA computation for a week.
       

      Clicking the value in the RATE OF CHANGE (%) column will lead you to Rate of Change(ROC) by Test/Metric Report. Clicking the icon displays the graph of the measure over the chosen time period (see Figure 4) .

      Figure 4 : The measure graph of a chosen measure