DIAGNOSTIC DASHBOARD FOR WEB PAGES

• US 20110271149A1
• Filed: 04/28/2010
• Published: 11/03/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Zhang, Jian, Galvan Coiffier, Ivonne D., Raz, Zohar, Sampathkumar, Bharathwaj R., Roussel, Corey M.
• Granted Patent: US 8,341,464 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/46
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/321 Display for diagnostics, e.g. diagnostic result display, self-test user interface
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0253 using browsers or web-pages for accessing management information

Abstract

A diagnostic dashboard for web applications is provided. The dashboard is presented in a portion of a web page in response to activation of a control in form of a frame along with partially displayed web page contents. Designers and administrators are provided informative data to assist them in discovering root causes for page malfunctioning or slowness, and are enabled to access call stack and exception information in error messages.

Claims

1. A method to be executed at least in part in a computing device for providing a diagnostic dashboard by a web application, the method comprising:

presenting a web page to a user from the web application;

receiving a diagnostic mode indication;

activating a diagnostic mode at one or more servers associated with the web application;

collecting diagnostic information; and

displaying the collected diagnostic information on the web page while continuing to display at least a portion of the web page contents.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

displaying on-demand error discovery information as part of the diagnostic dashboard.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

defining a diagnostic dashboard property;

if the diagnostic dashboard property is assigned an “

off”

value, disabling the diagnostic dashboard;

if the diagnostic dashboard property is assigned an “

on”

value, displaying the diagnostic dashboard for every requested page from the web application; and

if the diagnostic dashboard property is assigned an “

on-demand”

value, displaying the diagnostic dashboard in response to activation of a diagnostic dashboard control presented on the web page.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the diagnostic dashboard control includes one of:

a graphical user interface element, a textual user interface element, and a combination of graphical/textual user interface element.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

enabling access to call stack and exception information in error messages through the diagnostic dashboard.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the collected diagnostic information is displayed through a diagnostic dashboard frame presented over a portion of the web page.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

continuing to display actual contents of the web page over another portion of the web page in a reduced format, wherein a size ratio of the diagnostic dashboard frame and the actual contents of the web page is determined based on one of;

a predefined default value, and a dynamic adjustment process.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein a location of the diagnostic dashboard frame and the actual contents of the web page is determined based on one of:

a predefined default value, and a dynamic adjustment process.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the diagnostic dashboard frame includes a navigation section and a properties section.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the navigation section includes a clickable indented list of the web page'"'"'s hierarchy of scopes starting from a root page request.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the properties section includes:

a listing of collected performance metrics comprising at least one from a set of;

a page performance metric, a number of performed queries, a resource cost of performed queries, a page rendering time, timing information associated with a current request, and a number of current operations; and

a listing of functionality metrics comprising exception messages.

12. A server for providing a web application employing a diagnostic dashboard, the server comprising:

a memory;

a processor coupled to the memory, the processor executing diagnostic module, wherein the diagnostic module is configured to;

present a parent web page to a user, wherein the web page includes a diagnostic dashboard control;

in response to receiving a user activation of the diagnostic dashboard control, activate diagnostic mode at one or more servers associated with the web application;

collect diagnostic information from the one or more servers; and

enable display of a diagnostic dashboard frame on the web page, wherein the diagnostic dashboard frame includes a navigation section presenting a clickable indented list of the web page'"'"'s hierarchy of scopes starting from a root page request and a properties section presenting a listing of collected metrics associated with a scope selected on the navigation section.

13. The server of claim 12, wherein the displayed metrics for the selected scope are include aggregated values for sub-scopes below a hierarchical level of the selected scope.

14. The server of claim 12, wherein the properties section includes at least one from a set of:

an aggregated page metric, a number of performed queries, a resource cost of performed queries, a listing of performed queries, a page rendering time, timing information associated with a current request, and a number of current operations.

15. The server of claim 14, wherein the diagnostic module is further configured to:

in response to selection of a listed query on the properties section, display a text of the query in one of a dialog and a hover-on text box.

16. The server of claim 12, wherein the diagnostic module is further configured to:

in response to selection of a performance metric on the properties section, display explanatory information in one of a dialog and a hover-on text box, wherein the explanatory information includes a description of a detected error and a corrective action suggestion.

17. The server of claim 12, wherein the one or more servers include at least one from a set of:

a web server, an application server, and a database server.

18. A computer-readable storage medium with instructions stored thereon for providing a diagnostic dashboard for a web application, the instructions comprising:

presenting a web page to a user, the web page including a diagnostic dashboard icon;

in response to one of;

a diagnostic dashboard property being assigned an “

on”

value, receiving an appended query parameter in a web page address, and receiving a user activation of the diagnostic dashboard icon, collecting diagnostic information from the one or more servers associated with the web application;

reducing a size of displayed actual contents on the web page; and

displaying a diagnostic dashboard frame on the same web page, wherein the diagnostic dashboard frame includes a navigation section presenting a clickable indented list of the web page'"'"'s hierarchy of scopes and a properties section presenting a listing of collected performance metrics associated with a scope selected on the navigation section.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the instructions further comprise:

providing an error detail property as part of the diagnostic dashboard, which when activated enables display of call stack and exception information in error messages by modifying a call stack attribute in a web application configuration file.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the diagnostic dashboard is configured to present diagnostic information across a multi-tier web application executed across a front end server, an application server, and a back end database server.