Documentation Plugins AppDynamics data source Query editor

AppDynamics query editor

The AppDynamics query editor allows you to build queries for AppDynamics data in dashboards, Explore, and alerting. The query editor supports the following query types:

• Metrics - Query application performance metrics from the AppDynamics Metrics API.
• Analytics - Query analytics data using ADQL (AppDynamics Query Language) from the Analytics Events API.
• Health - Query health rule violations for an application.
• Events - Query application events such as deployments, errors, and policy violations.
• Tiers - Query tier information for an application.
• Metric Names - Browse the metric hierarchy for an application.

Select a query type using the radio buttons at the top of the query editor. For general information on Grafana query editors, refer to Query editors.

Key concepts

If you’re new to AppDynamics, here are key terms used in this documentation:

Metrics query type

To create a Metrics query, select Metrics from the query type radio buttons. The Metrics query editor queries application performance metrics from the AppDynamics Controller REST API.

Raw edit mode

By default, the metric field uses segment-based selection where you navigate through the metric hierarchy one level at a time. Click the edit icon (pencil) next to the Metric field to switch to raw text input mode, which allows you to type or paste a full metric path directly. Click the checkmark icon to apply changes when using raw edit mode.

Configure labels

Customize how series are labeled in your visualizations using the Labels drop-down below the main query fields.

• Full Path - Uses the full metric path as the label. For example: Overall Application Performance|Average Response Time (ms).

• Segments - Builds the label from specific segments of the metric path. Segment indexing starts at 1. For example, with a metric path of Errors|mywebsite|Error|Errors per Minute and segments 2, 4, the label shows mywebsite|Errors per Minute.

• Custom - Combines free text with aliasing patterns to include metric metadata:

  • {{app}} - The application name.
  • {{n}} - The nth segment from the metric path.

  For example, with the metric path Overall Application Performance|Average Response Time (ms) and the custom label {{app}} MetricPart2: {{2}}, the result is myApp MetricPart2: Average Response Time (ms).

Analytics query type

To create an Analytics query, select Analytics from the query type radio buttons. Analytics queries use ADQL to query AppDynamics analytics data.

The query editor provides a code editor with autocomplete suggestions for fields, tables, and template variables as you type your ADQL query.

Analytics query examples

The following examples demonstrate common ADQL query patterns.

Count transactions grouped by name, filtered by a template variable:

SQL Copy

SELECT distinct(transactionName), count(*) FROM transactions WHERE transactionName IN (${transactionName:doublequote})

Aggregate response times into a time series by user experience:

SQL Copy

SELECT series(eventTimestamp, '1m'), userExperience, count(*) FROM transactions

Query the slowest transactions over the selected time range:

SQL Copy

SELECT transactionName, max(responseTime) AS maxResponseTime FROM transactions ORDER BY maxResponseTime DESC LIMIT 10

Query application logs for errors:

SQL Copy

SELECT eventTimestamp, MSGTY, MSGTXT, Application FROM application_logs WHERE MSGTY = 'E'

Query browser performance records:

SQL Copy

SELECT pageUrl, avg(domReadyTime) AS avgDomReady, count(*) AS total FROM browser_records ORDER BY avgDomReady DESC

Set the Limit field to control how many records are returned (default 100, maximum 1000). For aggregation queries like count(*) or avg(), the limit applies to the number of result rows, not the number of raw records scanned.

Health, Events, Tiers, and Metric Names query types

The Health, Events, Tiers, and Metric Names query types use form-based editors to query the AppDynamics Controller REST API. Each type provides specific input fields relevant to its API endpoint.

These query types support a Use dashboard’s time picker toggle. When enabled (default), the query automatically uses the dashboard’s time range. When disabled, you can specify a fixed time range directly in the query using the start-time and end-time fields.

For details on using the Events query type with annotations, refer to AppDynamics annotations.

Use cases

The following examples demonstrate common use cases for the AppDynamics data source.

Monitor application response time

Query the average response time for an application to track performance trends:

1. Select Metrics from the query type radio buttons.
2. Select your application from the Application drop-down.
3. Navigate to Overall Application Performance|Average Response Time (ms) in the Metric selector.
4. Set Labels to Custom and enter {{app}} - Response Time.

Display a single metric value

Use the Roll-up toggle and a Stat panel to display the current value of a metric:

1. Select Metrics from the query type radio buttons.
2. Select your application from the Application drop-down.
3. Navigate to Overall Application Performance|Calls per Minute in the Metric selector.
4. Set Aggregation to Sum.
5. Toggle Roll-up on to return a single data point.
6. Use a Stat or Gauge visualization to display the value.

Track error rates

Query error metrics to monitor application health:

1. Select Metrics from the query type radio buttons.
2. Select your application from the Application drop-down.
3. Navigate to Overall Application Performance|Errors per Minute in the Metric selector.
4. Set Aggregation to Max to see peak error rates.

Compare metrics across applications

Use a template variable for the application to compare the same metric across multiple applications:

1. Create a template variable with the query Applications.
2. Select Metrics from the query type radio buttons.
3. Select ${application} from the Application drop-down.
4. Navigate to the desired metric path.

When multiple applications are selected, the plugin generates a separate query for each application and displays them as individual series.

Analyze business transactions

Use an Analytics query to analyze business transaction volume and performance:

SQL Copy

SELECT transactionName, count(*) AS total, avg(responseTime) AS avgResponseTime FROM transactions ORDER BY total DESC

Identify slow transactions

Find transactions that exceed a response time threshold:

SQL Copy

SELECT transactionName, responseTime, eventTimestamp FROM transactions WHERE responseTime > 5000 ORDER BY responseTime DESC

Set Limit to 50 to retrieve the top 50 slowest transactions.

Monitor user experience distribution

Visualize how user experience is distributed across transactions:

SQL Copy

SELECT series(eventTimestamp, '5m'), userExperience, count(*) FROM transactions

This query returns a time series grouped by user experience category (NORMAL, SLOW, VERY_SLOW, STALL, ERROR), suitable for a stacked bar or time series visualization.