Working with the user interface
You can access Instana through the user interface.
For the list of web browsers supported for accessing the Instana UI, see Supported web browsers.
Logging in
Before you log in to Instana, make sure that authentication is configured. For more information, see Configuring authentication.
To log in to Instana, complete the following steps:
- Enter the Instana URL in a supported browser. The Instana log in page is displayed.
- Complete one of the following steps:
- Log in with the email address that is registered with Instana:
- In the Email field, enter the email address that is registered with Instana.
- Enter the password.
- Log in with Google Single Sign-On (SSO):
- Click Log in with Google.
- Select the Google account that is enabled for SSO.
- Log in with the email address that is registered with Instana:
To Log out of Instana, click .
Home page
The home page is the initial page that you see when you log in to Instana.
The Instana home page consists of the following elements:
- Navigation menu: Access all the sections on the Instana UI from the side navigation menu.
- Share: Share URLs from Instana and invite users to access Instana.
- Date and time picker: Select the time range for the data that is displayed in Instana.
- Live: Display real-time data in Instana.
- Show what's new : View the latest changes to Instana.
- Install agents or collectors : Install agents and OpenTelemetry collectors on Instana.
- Add user : Add users to Instana.
- IBM Documentation : Access the Instana documentation.
- Release notes : View the latest version of the Instana SaaS release notes.
- Community blogs : Read the latest blogs from IBM Instanauts, the Instana blog community.
The home page also includes summary tables for the following landing pages in the UI, displaying the top five entries per area:
- Events
- Service level objectives
- My custom dashboards
- Infrastructure
- Websites
- Applications
- Synthetic monitoring
- Platforms
- Incidents
- Mobile apps
- Business processes
Items in each table are listed based on what is shown on the landing pages. For most tables, you can favorite items on the home page to anchor those to the top, and you can reorder the tables based on your preference.
Navigation menu
The navigation menu consists of the following items:
- Websites & mobile apps: Monitor the performance, availability, and user experience of websites and mobile applications
- Business processes: Monitor end‑to‑end business process flows to identify bottlenecks, failures, and performance issues
- Applications: Manage application perspectives by analyzing performance, dependencies, and service health across environments
- GenAI observability: Monitor generative AI (gen AI) platforms to gain visibility into operational behavior, performance, and reliability
- Platforms: Monitor genAI applications running on supported AI and data platforms
- Infrastructure: Monitor servers, containers, Kubernetes, cloud resources, and underlying infrastructure components
- Custom dashboards: Monitor key metrics and insights using customizable dashboards tailored to your operational needs
- Logs: Analyze logs to investigate issues, identify patterns, and correlate events across systems
- Synthetic monitoring: Manage synthetic tests to monitor application availability and user journeys proactively
- Analytics: Analyze telemetry and operational data to uncover trends, anomalies, and performance insights
- Vulnerabilities: View Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) to assess security risks across your monitored environment
- Events: Monitor events to track incidents, anomalies, and system changes in real time
- Automation: Automate actions and responses based on events, alerts, or predefined conditions
- Service levels: Monitor service levels to track service reliability and compliance with defined objectives
- Settings: View and edit Instana configuration settings to manage users, integrations, and global preferences
- AI gateway: Connect and manage connections to watsonx.ai and other external large language model (LLM) services
- Agents & collectors: Collect, process, and forward OpenTelemetry data by using the OpenTelemetry Collector and Instana agent to the Instana backend
- Account & billing: View monthly data ingest usage and overage details
- More: Access Instana documentation and release notes, open support tickets, and obtain knowledge about Instana
Sharing an Instana URL
You can share URLs from Instana and invite users to access the URLs. Instana can turn the URL into a shorter link that is easy to share. When the shared link is opened, the Instana URL with the same time range is opened even in a different time zone.
You can send an email with the URL or copy the URL from the Page link field and share it without sending the email.
To share an Instana URL over email, complete the following steps:
- Click the Share button on the Instana UI. The Share pageName dialog is displayed.
- In the Email address field, enter an email address. Click Add user to add multiple email addresses.
- Optional: In the Email message field, enter a message. This message is included in the email.
- Click Send.
An email is sent with the subject fullName wants to share a page in Instana.
- If the email is mapped to a user in Instana, they can log in and view the page.
- If the email is not mapped to a user in Instana, the user needs to sign up for Instana to access the URL.
Interacting with graphs
The prebuilt dashboards in Instana provide information about your environment in charts and tables. The dashboard is automatically displayed when you select an item in the menu.
You can set a time range to view data in charts. To change the time range for the dashboard, click the clock icon next to the short link icon. The range that you select in the date picker or time picker applies to all the charts and tables in the dashboard.
- To view charts in real-time, click Live.
- To view the most recent data in the charts, click Last minute in the time range.
- To view second-by-second data, hover over a graph point.
Show and hide data in a chart
You can show or hide data in a chart. To hide an item, click the name of the item in the legend. In the following chart, the values for "Users" are hidden:
In the following chart, the values for "Users" are visible:
Zoom in on a time range
To zoom in on a time range in a graph, complete the following steps:
- Select a time range:
Figure 4. Select time range 
- Click Zoom to time range:
Highlight a time range in all charts
You can highlight a time range in all the charts in a dashboard. To highlight a range in all graphs, complete the following steps:
- Select a time range in a chart:
- Select Highlight on all charts:
To stop highlighting, click Clear highlight.
Download data from charts
You can download the data in a chart in JSON or CSV format.
To download the chart data, complete the following steps:
- Click a chart.
- Click Download JSON or Download CSV. A dialog box is displayed.
- Click Allow.
The JSON file or CSV file is downloaded depending on the option that you selected.
Dynamic Graph
The dynamic graph contains configuration data, dependencies, performance information, and health indicators. It drives other components of Instana, from mapping and visualization to tracing and automated root cause analysis. The dynamic graph is created and updated automatically. The definition of some components, such as services, can be further specified through service configuration.
For more information, see Leveraging the Dynamic Graph
Unbounded analytics
Unbounded analytics automatically associate data in the context you need. Either path directs you to the specific graph, bar chart, or text description that help you find the root cause. You can apply filters to the trace data set in effectively unlimited combinations to find the exact request or trace that requires attention. Information is organized and displayed in Dynamic Graph to reveal the dependencies between your application components automatically. The conditions that lead to and result from an issue are associated with that issue, so you can look forward or backward for cause and effect
Unbounded analytics uses the browser and backend trace details that are collected with the Dynamic Graph to easily understand performance issues and optimize performance. For more information, see Unbounded analytics.