Honeycomb’s Home area provides a snapshot of your dataset. Home displays visualizations of some commonly-used queries and breakdowns, and an overview of your most recent traces and events. Both can be used as a jumping-off point to explore your data.
Use this view to become familiar with key system metrics and to check on the health of your systems.
Home displays the following data visualizations:
You can control the data your visualizations show by:
Both “Total Traces” visualizations display the total number of distinct traces or requests during the selected time window.
You can separate the data in your chart visualizations into groups, so you can compare data segments. To do so, select from the available fields in the accompanying dropdown. The accompanying table shows values for each group, plus the total number of traces for the given time period.
trace.trace_id or equivalent), then the number visualization will not display and the chart visualization will default to “Total Events”, which will count all events that Honeycomb receives. Both “Total Error Events” visualizations display the total number of spans or events with errors during the selected time window.
You can separate the data in your chart visualizations into groups, so you can compare data segments. To do so, select from the available fields in the accompanying dropdown. The accompanying table shows values for each group, plus the total number of error events for the selected time period.
error to Honeycomb. Both “95th Percentile Latency” visualizations display the 95th-percentile latency of traces or requests that have been sent over the selected time window.
In statistics, a percentile describes how a value compares to other values in the sample. A 95th percentile means that 95% of values in the sample are below that value. 95th percentile latency means that 95% of traces or requests are faster than that threshold value.
You can separate the data in your chart visualizations into groups, so you can compare data segments.
To do so, select from the available fields in the accompanying dropdown.
The accompanying table shows values for each group, plus the total 95th percentile (p95 Latency) for the given time period.
duration_ms to Honeycomb. You can quickly compare segments of key data in your chart visualizations by separating your data into groups. Grouping your data by useful fields helps you explore your data and assess the health of your system.
To group your data, select a field from a chart visualization’s accompanying dropdown. Once you have selected a field, the chart visualization’s accompanying table will populate with values for each group. This data can help you answer questions like:
Each chart visualization’s accompanying dropdown is populated with source fields mapped to Honeycomb dataset fields. You can map your source fields to the selected dataset’s dataset fields using Dataset Definitions.
Dataset fields you can map include:
In addition to data visualizations, Home displays an overview of the most recent traces or events in your dataset or service.
If you have sent traces into your dataset, the Recent Traces view displays the five traces with the most recent root spans for the selected service.
To inspect the spans in a trace, select the waterfall icon for the row that contains that trace; this will allow you to navigate to the trace’s waterfall diagram.
To see the breakdown of a trace by span name, hover over the Details field in the row that contains that trace.
The Recent Events view displays the five most recent events in your dataset.
To see the full JSON for an event, select the expand icon next to that event.
The displayed data visualizations depend on Honeycomb dataset fields being mapped to source fields in your sent data. You can manually map these fields in Dataset Definitions:
You can map the following dataset fields for a selected dataset:
| Dataset Field | Description | Allowed Type(s) | Source Field Name | Can Group By? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Error | Value that indicates an error occurred. Used to identify errors when calculating the “Total Error Events” visualizations. | boolean, string, derived column | error |
Yes |
| HTTP Status Code | Code that indicates the success, failure, or other status of a request. | string, integer, derived column | response.status_code |
Yes |
| Name | Name of the function or method in which the span was created. | string, integer, derived column | name |
Yes |
| Duration | Length of time the span took in milliseconds (ms). Used to calculate the “95th Percentile Latency” visualizations. | float, integer | duration_ms or durationMs |
No |
| Route | HTTP URL or equivalent route processed by the request. | string, derived column | Not automatically mapped | Yes |
| User | User making the request in the system. | string, integer, derived column | Not automatically mapped | Yes |
If you need to troubleshoot your visualizations, explore these solutions to common issues.
If your dataset is not a tracing dataset (that is, it does not include trace.trace_id or equivalent), then the chart visualization will default to “Total Events”, which will count all events that Honeycomb receives.
Both “Total Error Events” visualizations rely on a source field being mapped to the Error dataset field.
To ensure both visualizations are populated, when you configure your visualizations, map a source field to the Error dataset field, or send a source field named error to Honeycomb.
Both “95th Percentile Latency” visualizations rely on a source field being mapped to the Duration dataset field.
To ensure both visualizations are populated, when you configure your visualizations, map a source field to the Duration dataset field, or send a source field named duration_ms to Honeycomb.