Live Event Log

This guide assumes you are familiar with API Analytics already. If not, please review the Introduction to Event Analytics first.

The Live Event Log enables you to filter on both API Calls and Actions in real-time and tail the filtered streams. You can narrow between API calls and Actions using the field Event Type.

Filters

Filters enable you to filter data by specific properties such as a certain _User Id_or only a particular route of interest. As a filter is created, Moesif will parse through your data to assist in building the query. An example would be if you filtered by URI Route, Moesif would find all of the URI routes within your data and present you with those options to more easily create the filter.

API Calls

API Calls are logged from a Moesif server integration for popular API gateways and API frameworks.

With the live event log, you can filter API calls by a variety of API fields like URI route, query parameters, HTTP headers, and body fields.

To specifically include only API calls, you’ll need to filter for events where Event Type is API Call.

Event Log options for selected events

Moesif also analyzes HTTP text payloads like JSON and XML enabling you to filter on specific keys and values. Binary content-types such as octet-stream will be displayed in binary format.

Actions

Actions represents an action a customer made in your UI such as “Signed-In” or “Viewed-Docs”. These can be tracked using a client integration.

To specifically include only UI events, you’ll need to filter for events where Event Type is Action. You can filter custom actions by their Action Name or custom event metadata that is stored with the action.

Filtering custom actions

Only including data from new users and companies

By selecting the filters for New Users Only and New Companies Only, the data inlcuded in the live event log will only show for users and/or companies that have made their first API call within the time period in which you are filtering within.

Filtering on new users and companies

Views

There are two ways in which you can view the data from the Live Event Log. The default is as a Stream and you can also select to view as a Table. Both options are available in the top left corner of the Live EventLog screen.

The default Stream view will display events in clickable elements

FLive Event Log stream view

The Table view will display events in a table format, similar to a spreadsheet.

FLive Event Log table view

Each view displays the same information but can be changed based on viewing preference.

Event log actions

When one or more events are selected, a different set of option appears which allows you to work with the selected events.

Event log actions

The types of actions include:

  • Show Waterfall
    • Display the selected events in a Waterfall/Timeline chart
  • Download Events
    • Export the selected events as a JSON file
  • Run in Postman
    • Export the selected events as a Postman Collection
  • Diff 2 Events
    • View a field-by-field comparison of the two selected events
  • Events Link
    • Provides a link to quickly share selected events with internal team members or in bug tickets
  • Bulk Export
    • Export files with the format options of CSV, JSON and Parquet and an option to select fields.

    These options can be seen when you select 1 or more events in the Live Event Log.

    The Diff 2 Events option only becomes available when exactly 2 events are selected.

Show Waterfall

You can select a group of events (marking the checkboxes next to each event) and plot on a timeline chart. Select Show Timeline Chart menu option under the XX Selected button. Moesif has found its very useful to filter on user_id or session_token and then plot the timeline so you can see the API calls relevant for a particular user.

Plotting events on a timeline chart

Download Events

To export the data for events in Moesif, simply select each of the events you are interested in exporting and click Download Events. With this, you’ll then see your data downloaded as JSON through the browser.

Run in Postman

You may want to export calls as a Postman Collection so tha the calls can be replayed in Postman. To do this, on the Live Event Log screen select the API calls that you would like to replay in Postman. Once selected, click the Run in Postman button at the top of the screen. You’ll then be prompted to “Download Postman Collection” which can then be loaded into Postman.

Create Postman collection

To load the collection into Postman, check out this brief guide

Diff 2 Events

To compare two API calls, select Diff 2 Events from the selection drop down. Moesif will show you a left and right side and mark the additions and subtractions in green/red. Moesif will diff the entire HTTP request/response including HTTP headers and any JSON body to aid in debug investigation.

Compare two API calls

Save/Share logs

You can share the event log to a dashboard of your choice. Your able to save the chart privately, or share with the rest of your team members (default option).

Log streams saved to your dashboard are updated in real-time. All other charts will adhere to the defaults set when added to the dashboard, although this can be updated in the dashboard if you require something different than the default.

Sharing API calls

In addition, you can securely share specific events with external partners or customers without exposing all your API data via Public Links. To do so, ensure you have the right filters applied such as a specific user_id or a specific set of events, then go to the Public tab after clicking the share button. For more information, view workspace documentation.

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