Timeline Report

The Timeline report shows various types of KPIs within one graph so you can easily visualize certain events that might have occurred throughout the test.

View Timeline Report

As soon as your test starts to collect data, the Timeline Report graph shows.

Follow these steps:

  1. In the Performance tab, select Reports. The most recent reports are shown on top.

    Tip: You can enter a report name in the search field to view the top five reports sorted by execution date.

  2. Click Show all reports and select a report to view its details.
    A test report overview opens.

  3. Click the Timeline Report tab.

    timeline report

In the Timeline Report window, the KPI selection panel is on the left.

timeline report settings

Explanation of the KPIs

  • VIRTUAL USERS shows how many virtual users are currently active.
  • HITS (Hits per second) is the number of HTTP/s requests per second that are generated by the test.
  • RESPONSE TIME is the amount of time from the first byte sent to the server to the last byte received on the client side.
  • CONNECT TIME is the time it takes to establish the TCP connection, including host name resolution and SSL handshake. It depends on DNS server speed, network latency, and DNS caches. It is recorded in the report every time an HTTP or HTTPS connection was initiated to communicate with the server.
  • LATENCY TIME is the time from sending the request and processing it on the server side, to the time the client received the first byte.
  • BYTES is the average bandwidth consumption that’s generated by the test per second.
  • ERRORS show how many errors occurred.
  • RESPONSE CODES are the response codes received.

kpis by labels

View KPIs by Labels

To view KPIs by labels, click the arrow next to each KPI and select the required label from the different options that open.

Example: Hits of Login in the following image.

kpis hits of login

You can see the KPIs that are available for every label in your test.

You can filter the view of KPIs to save a lot of time and manual effort if you have some tests with many labels. If you type a KPI name in the KPI Selection textbox and click Select All, all the labels under this KPI are selected. The KPI Selection textbox is case-insensitive.

Tip: For more information about ignoring labels in reports, see Ignore Labels in Reports.

Response Time Filter

The response time KPI includes many metrics, such as average (avg), maximum (max), minimum (min), median, 90th/95th/99th percentile (P90/P95/P99), and so on. If you type a KPI name and a metric in the KPI Selection textbox and click Select All, all the labels under this KPI, together with the specified metric are selected.

If you type response time in the KPI Selection textbox, the Response Time KPI expands. By default, the Avg metric is selected for All.

If you click Select All, the Avg metric checkbox is selected for all labels, and the graph updates accordingly.

timeline report - response time - average default

You can type the name of any available metric in the KPI Selection textbox. If you type max and click Select All, the Max metric is selected for all labels.

Let's say that at the All level, Avg and Min are selected. You type response time max into KPI Selection and click Select All. At the All level, Avg and Min remain selected.

timeline report - response time - max

To clear your selection, click Unselect All. To restore the default settings, click Reset to Default.
You can only enter one metric name at a time in the KPI Selection textbox.
A new selection adds to an existing selection and does not remove it. Let's say that you enter a metric name in the KPI Selection textbox such as response time max and click Select All. You then replace response time max with response time min and click Select All again. For each label, all the Max checkboxes remain selected, and all the Min checkboxes are selected.

timeline report - response time - max and min

View KPIs from APM Integrations

KPIs from APM Integration profiles that you included in your test configuration will appear at the bottom of the list, after the built-in KPIs.

kpis from apm integrations

Download Timeline Report KPI Data

You can download the KPI data that BlazeMeter uses to build the Timeline Report via a call to the following API:

https://a.blazemeter.com/api/v4/data/kpis?interval={{seconds}}&kpis[]={{kpi}}&ops[]={{operand}}&master_ids[]={{masterId}}&labels[]={{label}}

The above API call includes the following options:

  • {{seconds}}
    The number of seconds between each data point generated.
  • {{kpi}}
    The KPI you want to view. This parameter can be used multiple times in the same request to cover as many KPIs as you are interested in. The list of values is as follows:
    • na: Number of Active threads
    • ec: Error Count
    • ct: Connect Time
    • t: Response time
    • lt: Latency
    • ts: Timestamp in epoch format
    • n: Number of hits per second
    • by: Bytes per second
  • {{operand}}
    This is how you find the average, minimum, or maximum values for applicable KPIs. The list of acceptable values is as follows:
    • avg
    • min
    • max
  • {{masterId}}
    The master ID of the report you want to see the data from.
  • {{label}}
    The label ID of the label you're interested in.

Use of the BlazeMeter API requires authentication per the instructions found in the article Authorization.

Sliding Windows

You can evaluate failure criteria by enabling 1-minute sliding windows when creating and editing pass and fail criteria in tests. In the event that failure criteria are triggered, the time frame during which violations occurred is shown in the Timeline report as a sliding window. Sliding windows offer the following benefits:

  • Prompt detection of violations against the performance thresholds set in the failure criteria, enabling quick action to address potential issues.
  • Proactive approach to test evaluations by offering insights early and frequently during test executions.
  • Clear reporting in the Timeline report helps you to easily identify and investigate specific periods of concern, streamlining the troubleshooting process.

To enable sliding windows, create a test, enable failure criteria, and select the 1-min slide window eval option for the criteria required.

You can set the 1-min slide window eval option for all failure criteria simultaneously so that all failure criteria can stop a test:

For more information, see Failure Criteria.

Sliding windows evaluate performance against failure criteria in real time, checking at regular intervals during the test duration. For instance, if a failure criterion is set, such as an average response time exceeding 500 ms, BlazeMeter continuously checks the performance of the preceding minute.

At specified intervals, such as the first minute (01:00), BlazeMeter evaluates the performance of the preceding minute, creating segments (such as 00:00-01:00) for analysis. This process is repeated every few seconds, enabling a detailed examination of performance during the test.

If the designated threshold is exceeded at any checkpoint, BlazeMeter promptly flags it as a violation. This real-time detection allows immediate awareness of issues as they occur during the test, facilitating quicker identification and response to potential problems.

In the event of violations, the Timeline report highlights these periods with a distinct red rectangle. This visual representation makes it easier for you to identify and investigate areas of concern, allowing for efficient troubleshooting and resolution.

Using Multiple Charts

You can add charts to the charts that displays by default. This feature helps you to efficiently analyze reports and identify correlations and anomalies. This capability avoids the need to continuously toggle between selecting and deselecting labels and KPIs, resulting in a time-consuming process. You can customize additional charts, assign names to them, and arrange them in their preferred layout.

Multiple timeline charts let you distribute labels and KPIs across different charts on the page, facilitating a more focused and efficient analysis. This feature enables faster comprehension of data, clearer visualization of trends, and easier highlighting and sharing of conclusions. By leveraging multiple charts in the Timeline tab, you can enhance your performance testing workflows, ultimately leading to more insightful and actionable outcomes.

You can add charts as follows:

  • Click Duplicate Chart next to an existing chart.

  • Click Add Chart below an existing chart.

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