Monitoring system health

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1. Overview

Use the System Health options in the Admin screen to:

  • Examine the Dundas BI application log for any errors or warnings
  • Manage running and scheduled jobs in Dundas BI as detailed below, including data cube storage and notifications
  • Verify email settings by sending a test email
  • Run health checks and fix identified issues

System Health options
System Health options

2. Viewing logs

The application log in Dundas BI can help you to troubleshoot operational warnings or errors.

See Application logs for details on accessing the log and configuring log filters.

Viewing log entries
Viewing log entries

3. Managing jobs

3.1. View all jobs in Dundas BI

Click to expand System Health, then click Jobs to monitor the status of past, scheduled, and currently running jobs. The following job kinds are supported:

  • Update In-Memory Cube - Build in-memory storage for a data cube
  • Update Data Warehouse - Build data warehouse storage for a data cube
  • Notification - Execution of scheduled notifications including data-driven notifications
  • Cleanup - A periodic job performed by the system service that deletes expired records from the application database (log entries, performance statistics, usage tracking data, etc.). You can control the frequency of the cleanup job and the expiry interval of the records in advanced configuration settings, or via the Maintenance Job Details dialog. Click View on the job to access it.
  • Rebuild Indexes - A periodic job performed by the system service. Rebuilds the indexes in the application and warehouse databases to avoid index fragmentation. You can change the job schedule or disable/enable it via the Maintenance Job Details dialog. Click View on the job to access it.

View the status of all jobs in Dundas BI
View the status of all jobs in Dundas BI

Jobs are displayed in a table at the bottom of the Jobs screen. Each job entry provides the following information:

  • An icon indicating the result of the last job run.
  • An icon indicating the status of a job (idle, running, disabled, deleted).
  • An icon indicating the kind of job (in-memory, data warehouse, notification, cleanup).
  • A description of the job.
  • The tenant the job is associated with.
  • The last run date and time.
  • The last run duration.
  • A description of the latest event.

The legend above explains what each icon means, or you can hover over (long-tap) an icon in the table to see a descriptive tooltip.

Note
Jobs interrupted by a Dundas BI server shut down will by marked as Abnormal Termination by the Cleanup job.

3.2. Filter and sort jobs

Use the Job Kind and Job Status dropdowns to filter the job entries by type and/or status. The status of a job can be one of the following:

  • Idle
  • Running
  • Disabled
  • Deleted

Filter jobs by type and status
Filter jobs by type and status

Click the Last Run Date box and use the calendar to choose a specific date for filtering the job entries. For example, you can easily filter the entries to show jobs for Today only.

Filter jobs by last modified date
Filter jobs by last modified date

Use the Order By dropdown to sort the jobs by the last run date or the job creation date. The A-Z buttons let you switch between ascending or descending order.

If your instance is using multi-tenancy, click Select tenant to choose a tenant and view only the jobs specific to that tenant.

3.3. View and edit job details

In the Jobs screen, select a job in the table and then click Details in the toolbar to access its details including its run history. You can also double-click or right-click to open the details.

In the job details toolbar, you can manually Run the job or Cancel it if it's currently running, and the Disable button acts as a toggle and is shaded if the job is disabled. You can also modify the schedule of any scheduled job. If this job is for data cube storage for a specific tenant when using tenant overrides, you can optionally create a schedule for the tenant separate from the main parent job that otherwise runs for all tenants.

View the details of a notification job
View the details of a notification job

A table lists each time the job has run, including if one is in progress as indicated by an animated icon.

Tip
A toggled Auto-Refresh button in the toolbar indicates the job details and run history will be automatically refreshed every several seconds.

There are additional details about each time a job has run, which you can view by selecting the row in this table and clicking Details in the toolbar.

View the details of a job run
View the details of a job run

The Job Run Details dialog opens and includes a list of events that have occurred while running the job, which may include details about its progress, or an error message if there was a failure.

Click the View icon in the row for an event to view the entire message or to copy it. Click the Close button at the bottom of the dialogs to return to the job details.

To return to the list of all jobs, go back using your browser or click Jobs again in the sidebar to the left.

3.4. Clear old job data

By default, the data associated with a job is cleared automatically based on the Job Data Maximum Age configuration setting. This is set to 30 days initially, which means job data is cleared once it becomes older than 30 days.

If you want to manually clear job data yourself, you can do so from the Jobs screen by clicking Remove in the toolbar.

In the Remove Job Data dialog, click the box under Remove before, and then use the calendar to select a date. All job data older than this date will be cleared. Click Submit to clear the data.

Clear job data older than a specified date
Clear job data older than a specified date

3.5. Configure job failure emails

You can be notified by email when a job fails by setting up the Job Failure Email Policy in the application configuration settings. This can be set to notify the application maintainer/administrator, the creator of the job, and/or users who run the job. (When selecting the option to notify the application maintainer/administrator, you can either set the Maintainer Email Address setting or allow these messages to be sent to the built-in System Administrator account's address.)

There is also an advanced setting Job Failure Email Throttle Period that can prevent multiple emails from being sent within the specified period.

4. Testing email settings

Email settings must be configured properly in order for certain features such as notifications to work properly.

To check your email settings, expand the System Health options and click Test Email Settings.

Type an email address to receive a test email and then click Submit.

Test email settings
Test email settings

Check the appropriate inbox for the test email which will have the subject line: Dundas BI test email.

5. Health check

Dundas BI can automatically check for any potential issues with your Dundas BI instance and provide you with details or an option to fix the issue.

For details, see the Health check article.

6. See also

Dundas Data Visualization, Inc.
400-15 Gervais Drive
Toronto, ON, Canada
M3C 1Y8

North America: 1.800.463.1492
International: 1.416.467.5100

Dundas Support Hours:
Phone: 9am-6pm, ET, Mon-Fri
Email: 7am-6pm, ET, Mon-Fri