Quick definitions of monitor model terms
This page provides a quick reference for terms you will need when working with monitor models.
- Monitor model
- A model that describes the business performance management aspects of a business model, including events, business metrics, and key performance indicators (KPIs) that are required for real-time business monitoring. For detailed information, see What are monitor models?.
- Monitoring context
- A definition that corresponds to an object to be monitored, such as a process execution, an ATM, a purchase order, or the stock level in a warehouse, and defines all of the data that should be collected about that object as the system is running. The information is extracted from data carried by inbound events, and is held in metrics, counters, and stopwatches. For detailed information, see Monitoring contexts.
- Inbound event
- A declaration that a monitoring context wants to receive a specific event at run time. For detailed information, see Inbound events.
- Outbound event
- An event emitted from a monitoring context. Outbound events can be received by the Monitor action services, which allows an administrator to specify the actions (such as sending email) to take in response to an event. For detailed information, see Outbound events.
- Key
- A piece of information (such as an order number) that characterizes and uniquely identifies the real-world entity that is being tracked by a monitoring context. For detailed information, see Keys.
- Metric
- A holder for information, typically a business performance measurement, in a monitoring context. Metrics hold such information as the working duration of a process, the name of the user assigned to a task, a supplier's response time, and the cost of the risk assessment step in an insurance process. For detailed information, see Metrics.
- Key performance indicator (KPI)
- A quantifiable measure designed to track one of the critical success factors of a business process. For example, in a call center, a KPI could be "Average time for response to a customer call for the last 30 days" and could have a target of "less than one minute." For detailed information, see Business Monitor KPIs.
- Counter
- A specialized metric used to keep track of the number of occurrences of a specific situation or event. For example, you can use a counter to track the number of times that a task is started within a process, where that task is contained in a loop. For detailed information, see Stopwatches and counters.
- Stopwatch
- A specialized metric that is used to measure elapsed time. For example, you can use a stopwatch to track the time since an order was submitted. For detailed information, see Stopwatches and counters.