Business view dashboard (public preview)

The Business view dashboard connects technical performance data with business outcomes. You can use this dashboard to demonstrate operational value, review consumption trends, track alignment with business objectives, assess risks and quarterly performance, and identify optimization opportunities.

Open the Business view dashboard

  1. Log on to Instana UI.
  2. On the home page, click the Business view tab.
    Important:
    You must belong to the owner user group and have access to the Account & billing dashboard to view the Business view dashboard.

What the Business view dashboard shows

The Business view dashboard provides two viewing options:
  • This month view:

    Shows current month data. Use this to monitor ongoing performance and consumption in real-time.

  • Last month view:
    Compares data from two complete months by using the previous full month and the month before it. For example, in June, the dashboard compares May with April. Each metric displays:
    • Percentage change between months
    • Absolute difference in values
    • Trend direction (increase or decrease)
      Note:
      Month-over-month comparisons use only complete months to maintain accuracy. You can click View more to see detailed insights and real-time updates.

Switch tenant-unit

By default, the Business view dashboard displays data for the current tenant unit. To view metrics for another tenant-unit:

  1. On the Business view dashboard, click Switch tenant.
  2. Select the tenant and unit.
  3. Click Open.

Evaluate performance and reliability metrics

The Performance and reliability metrics section helps you analyze system health and reliability.

  • Total applications observed: Displays the total number of applications with active monitoring during the comparison period.
    • Why it matters:

      This metric defines your observability coverage. A higher number indicates broader monitoring scope.

    • Use this to:
      • Track application onboarding progress
      • Identify monitoring gaps
  • Service level objective (SLO) compliance: Displays the percentage of SLOs that meet their targets for the current month. For example, the format 98% (123 / 125) means 123 configured SLOs out of 125 are compliant. If no SLOs exist, the Business view dashboard prompts you to create them.
    • Why it matters:

      SLO compliance measures how well services meet defined reliability targets and supports SLA reporting.

    • Use this to:
      • Identify services that fail to meet targets
      • Prioritize remediation efforts
      • Support stakeholder communication
  • Average incident resolution time: Displays the cumulative average incident resolution time (in minutes), where each point shows the running average from the start of the period up to that date. You can use the filters (All incidents, Critical, Warning) to view trends by severity level, with lesser values indicating faster and more efficient resolution.
    • Why it matters:

      Resolution time is a key indicator of operational efficiency. Increasing trends may signal delays in response, higher downtime risk, and potential impact on business continuity.

    • Use this to:
      • Track incident response efficiency over time
      • Compare cumulative resolution performance across different severity levels
  • Incident closure status: Displays a bar chart that compares total incidents, closed incidents, and auto-closed incidents by Instana across two months. Use the filters (All incidents, Critical, Warning) to view the report based on specific incident severity.
    • Why it matters:

      This metric shows the breakdown of total incidents, those closed in total, and those auto-closed by Instana.

    • Use this to:
      • Monitor incident volume trends across months
      • Track the total number of auto-closed incidents where the triggering conditions were no longer met.
      • Understand incident closure patterns

Consumption overview

The Consumption overview section displays aggregated consumption data across all paid tenant units for SaaS deployments. For Self-Hosted deployments, it shows consumption data only for the current tenant unit.

  • Data usage: Displays current data ingestion in gigabytes (GiB) with historical trend, forecast, and threshold limit.
    • Why it matters:

      This metric helps you understand consumption growth and helps plan capacity and control costs. If the thresholds are exceeded, then the cost might increase, and might trigger extra charges

    • Use this to:
      • Track usage growth and detect spikes
      • Identify risk of exceeding thresholds
  • Managed Virtual Server (MVS) usage: Displays MVS usage for Standard and Essential tiers, with trend, forecast, and threshold. For more information about Standard and Essential, see Usage of charts.
    • Why it matters:

      This metric tracks infrastructure monitoring consumption based on your purchased MVS tier. It helps you monitor usage against your purchase entitlements. This metric reflects how efficiently you use infrastructure resources. High usage can indicate scaling demand, while inefficient usage can lead to unnecessary costs or resource constraints.

    • Use this to:
      • Track MVS consumption trends
      • Monitor usage against threshold limits
      • Display capacity based on forecast data

Benefits

The Business view dashboard:

  • Provides centralized visibility across performance, reliability, and usage
  • Delivers data-driven insights through trends and forecasts
  • Connects business alignment with technical metrics and outcomes
  • Tracks efficiency through automation metrics
  • Plans proactive capacity forecasts