Log View Grouping Tab

The Grouping tab is the last of five tabs when you add or manage a Log View. It turns a list of events into one row per business transaction, such as one order with all its steps. Grouped Log Views are what BPM tracking, Non-Events monitoring, and the runtime diagrams build on.

Understanding the Grouping tab

Group by (teal) makes the rows; the post-group filter (orange) decides which rows stay.

Animated walkthrough: one Group by, and the Log View shows one row per order.

1. Open the Grouping tab and click Add Group by.
2. Open the field list, type part of the name, and pick the field (Application interchange id).
3. Click Save and show. The Log View lists one row per order, each with the number of its events.

Group by options

From top to bottom, the tab holds:

• Display group summary - Shows a summary row for each group.
• Lock group by - Locks the grouping: the Grouping panel of the search shows no Group by fields, so nobody can change or remove them, administrators included. The result stays grouped by the fields you set. The card header says which applies: Locked: Users can't modify these fields in the log view, or Unlocked.
• Group by - Group the result by up to four fields. Each group is one combination of their values, shown together in the group header; see Group on several fields. Click Add Group by for another field; the button disappears at four. The second to fourth field each have a remove button.
• Sort Events by descending - Lists the events inside each group newest first; unchecked, oldest first. The order of the groups themselves doesn't change.
• Newest Event in group header - The group header shows the Log Date Time of the group's newest event; unchecked, of its oldest.
• Group count filter - Lists only the groups with that many events. Set From and To in the number boxes, or drag the slider between them; use the boxes for high numbers. With both at 0, the filter is off.
• Post-group filter - Keeps the groups whose events match a condition; see Post-group filter.

The Grouping tab.

Animated walkthrough: only the complete orders are left, and each one lists its events newest first.

1. On the Grouping tab of Contoso: Order-to-Cash, check Sort Events by descending and Newest Event in group header.
2. Under Group count filter, type 14 in both boxes; the slider follows.
3. Click Save and show, and search the last year.
4. Only the complete orders are listed: 14 events each, every header showing its newest event.
5. Open an order. Its events are listed newest first, with Order Invoiced on top.

Group on several fields

Group by several fields, and each group is one combination of their values. The group header shows all of them, such as US · Springfield · 62701 · Contoso Corporation, and opens straight to its events. The groups don't nest: you can't open a country to see its cities. For orders, group by Country, City, ZIP, and Customer Name to see where the orders come from, or by Customer Name and then the order id to see each customer's orders.

Four Group by fields make one group (blue) per combination of Country, City, ZIP, and Customer Name. The events (purple) come from the Order-to-Cash demo data.

Animated walkthrough: six groups for six customers, each one combination of the four values.

1. The Grouping tab of Contoso: Orders by place groups by O2C - Country, O2C - City, O2C - ZIP, and O2C - Customer Name.
2. Click Show and search today's orders: six groups, one per combination.
3. Open US · Springfield · 62701 · Contoso Corporation. It lists that customer's two orders from that address.

The Order-to-Cash demo data has six customers in four cities and two countries, with the Search Fields to set this up.

A Group by field always shows its value in the Log View; see Which Search Field Values a Log View Shows.

Design for runtime inspection

Grouped Log Views work best for runtime inspection when the group is one business transaction and the related events have clear Repository context:

• group by a stable business identifier or interchange identifier
• expose Search Fields that help users find the right transaction quickly
• keep Services, Contracts, and Systems current in the Repository Model
• check that a sample group tells a clean story before you publish the Log View

Read the full design guidance for runtime inspection, and see how users open the result in Inspect grouped Log Views as runtime diagrams.

Post-group filter

^{New 6.0}

The post-group filter keeps the groups whose events match a condition, so you can ask questions such as:

The Post-Group Op decides how the filter applies to the events in each group.

The filter you set here is the default: users find it filled in on the search page and can change it there. Unlike Lock group by, there is no lock for it.

Animated walkthrough: which orders never got an invoice? One question about the whole group.

1. On the Grouping tab of Contoso: Order-to-Cash, grouped on the Application interchange id, click Edit on Post-group filter.
2. Click Add new clause, pick the field Message Type, the Post-Group Op None, the operator =, and the value O2C.Order.Invoice/1.0.
3. Click Confirm and close, then Save and show.
4. Search today's orders of customer CUST-004. Only ORD-10010 is left: the order that never got an invoice.

Important

Post-group operations can mean a lot of disk IO on the SQL Server instance. Narrow the search with the shortest time range you can.

Next Steps

• Design grouped Log Views for Runtime Inspection
• Add or Manage Log View - All five tabs
• Inspect grouped Log Views as runtime diagrams

Related Topics

• What is a Log View?
• Log View General Tab
• Log View Search Criteria Tab
• Log View Data to Search Tab
• Log View Display Result Tab
• BPM
• Non Events Agent