In version 5.6 we've added a new feature: metrics.
Metrics are a simple and lightweight feature of the Catalog. Metrics can be handy when you or your team need to track some number but designing a fully featured BI dashboard feels like overkill for that. A metric can be a key performance indicator, a technical measurement, or any other number of interest - a weather forecast, a currency exchange rate, an air quality index, and so on. Server administrators can use metrics to display the number of rows imported into a database, the number of files processed, Server journal-based stats (workflows executed, failed), etc.
Features
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Metrics are very easy to create:
- On EasyMorph Server, go to the Catalog tab
- Press "Add new item" and select "Metric", enter the metric's name
- That's it
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Metrics in EasyMorph don't require an external database or a text file to be stored. They store their values in the Shared Memory of EasyMorph Server.
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The value of a metric can be set manually. For that:
- On EasyMorph Server, open the Catalog directory with the metric
- Hover the metric and press "Edit"
- Change the metric value in the metric settings
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The value of a metric can be set in a workflow (e.g. of a scheduled task) using the new command "Set metric" of the "Catalog command" action.
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Metrics can have thresholds. You can configure (in EasyMorph Desktop only, for now) whether the ranges below or above the thresholds are "good" or "bad" or "neutral". When a metric is in a "good" range, it's shown on a green background (as in the screenshot above). When it's in a "bad" range, it's shown on a red background.
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Another application can report a metric (e.g. telemetry). It can set it in EasyMorph remotely via an API endpoint:
- Create an API endpoint
- Create a workflow that parses requests coming to the API endpoint
- In that workflow, use the "Set metric" command to set the metric value
Alternatively, you can change the stored metric value in Shared Memory directly, using the "Shared memory" action.
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A cloud or external application can report a metric too via a webhook. This requires EasyMorph Gateway (the Starter plan for Gateway is now included in Team and Enterprise edition):
- Configure a connection to the Gateway
- Create a workflow that parses requests coming to the Gateway endpoint
- In that workflow, use the "Set metric" command to set the metric value
In the next release (5.6.1) we will be adding support for Shared Memory in ems-cmd (the Server CLI). It will make it possible to set (and read) Shared Memory values (and therefore metrics) from external applications from the command line.
Later, when we introduce boards, it will be possible to add metrics to boards.