Isolate mobile app performance issues

mPulse monitors all network traffic, but only domain results are reported in the mPulse dashboards. Use URL patterns to define rules that specify which paths of the network requests are captured and reported on within your native mobile application.

mPulse applies pattern-matching rules by looking at each path component of the URL that you want to capture metrics for. You can use an asterisk as a wildcard to replace one or more sub-paths in the URL (for example, http://example.com/abc/*, http://example.com/*/123 or http://example.com/*/*). If a rule matches the same path, or asterisk (*), for every sub-path component, mPulse captures that data and sends it to the mPulse collector. Keep in mind, an asterisk at the end of the URL does not match all path components, only that specific path-level.

Here are a few examples on adding URL pattern-matching rules to capture user actions:

Example 1
You want to capture all of the user actions associated with http://example.com/... so you set up a URL pattern rule that looks like this: http://example.com/*.

The rule matches http://example.com/abc and http:/example.com/123, but it does not match http://example.com/abc/123. The rule doesn’t work for this URL because it has two sub-path components, abc and 123. To match this URL, the rule must look like this: http://example.com/*/*.

Example 2
You can also use an asterisk (*) to replace components within the query string. However, each component of the query string needs to have a value of ‘*’, or it will not be included in the reported URL.

Given this URL:

http://www.website.com/api/x?category=abc&page=xyz

Here are three example patterns with results:

  • Pattern 1: /api/x?category=abc&page=xyz
    • Result: /api/x
    • No query string components are included because none are set to `*`
  • Pattern 2: /api/x?category=*&page=xyz
    • Result: /api/x?category=*
    • Only the category has a `*`, so the page component is discarded
  • Pattern 3: /api/x?category=abc&page=*
    • Result: /api/x?page=*
    • page is set to `*`, and category is discarded

How to

  1. In mPulse, click Central.
  2. In the left pane, click Apps, then double-click the mobile app that you want to use or create a new app.
  3. Click URLs.
  4. Under URL Patterns, enter the full URL that you want to gather metrics for. In this example http://example.com/abc/123 is the target URL.
  5. Click Parse URL to see the sub-parts of the URL, then select the sub-part that you want to use as the wild card. The sub-part that you select is highlighted. In this example sub-parts abc and 123 are selected for the wild card matches.
  6. Click Generate to see the final URL pattern. The part that you selected for the wild card is replaced with an asterisk. In this example, asterisks appear in sub-parts, abc and 123 of the target URL. mPulse will match and capture data for all sub-paths in the target URL.
  7. Click Finish to add the rule to the app configuration, then click OK to save the configuration.

Next steps

Use the Waterfall dashboard to see network requests for your mobile application.