VisiTrac

What is VisiTrac?

VisiTrac provides the user with quick and easy desktop access to an in-depth understanding of the structure and performance of any batch cycle. All the user needs to do is identify one or more cycle end tasks and VisiTrac produces a comprehensive collection of reports, charts and a full-cycle task flowchart. It's that easy.

VisiTrac makes it simple to summarize, manage and track your cycles. By loading historical task execution data into the product's database you can get an instant, historical view of how any cycle is and has been executing.

When a cycle runs late, the VisiTrac reports make it easy to determine why the cycle ended late. It could be a late start, a mid-cycle delay, one or more abends, extra processing loads or any combination of reasons. A quick review of the reports will make it self-evident why the cycle has ended so late so you can take action to prevent a failure the next time.

Finally, VisiTrac provides a graphical modeling environment where changes to the cycle can be applied and the what if effect to the overall system of work can be immediately seen.

Who Needs VisiTrac?

• Operations Control Managers who need to track their workloads
• Performance Technicians who want to quickly find the root of a cycle's troubles and model performance changes
• Upper-Management who wants to see a daily report on workload health and monitor SLA compliance
• Application Project Teams who need to understand, modify and model changes to a cycle before the changes hit the production phase
• Customers and I/T Professionals engaged in establishing and monitoring Service Level Agreements for batch process execution and completions
• Disaster/Recovery teams who need to understand the construction of a cycle for D/R planning
• Customers of outsourcing firms who need their own tools to monitor the outsourcing company's performance

VisiTrac Reports

• Task Flowchart
  The Task Flowchart provides an interactive view of all the tasks in a cycle. Through the flowchart you can visually see what tasks are part of the cycle, how tasks relate to one another and what tasks form the Critical Path which leads to your selected end task(s). This excellent task flow documentation tool is also an interactive modeling tool which allows you to test changes to the cycle and receive immediate feedback on the effects of those changes to the overall cycle. The Flowchart is one of the most popular features of VisiTrac aiding the user in visualizing, documenting, debugging and modeling any cycle.
  
  
  
• One-Page Summary
  The One-Page Summary is a high-level 'executive summary' of all the cycles defined to VisiTrac. There's one entry for each of your SLAs showing statistics for the last completed cycle -- for example: when did the cycle end and were there any exceptions noted. This report is ideal for use in daily cycle tracking for staff turn-over and general publication.
  
  
• Process Performance Report
  The Process Performance Report provides you with a line chart showing the completion time history of your cycles. The report shows both the historical Actual completion times and a user-definable, running-average Trend line of completion times. Through this report it's easy to see which cycles are in trouble or are heading that way. Armed with this knowledge you can direct your preventative tuning efforts for the most effective overall results.
  
  
  
• Critical Path Report
  The Critical Path Report provides a textual summary of all the tasks which make-up the Critical Path to the cycle's latest ending task. Included in this report are indications of which tasks have made the cycle late (if applicable), which tasks are running historically long and which tasks appear to have experienced an Abend/Restart event. Also included are any significant delays occuring in the critical path.
  
  
  
• Top-20 Critical Path Report
  The Top-20 report provides the user with a graphical view of the 20 longest running critical path tasks in the cycle. The data is presented in a bar chart and sorted by current task execution duration - longest to shortest. Along with the actual duration bar, you receive a user-definable average duration bar and CPU time component. You can compare the average and actual duration bars to identify tasks which are running longer than typical and quickly apply your skills to tune and improve the cycle's critical path.
  
  
  
• Gantt Chart
  The Gantt Chart provides a graphical view of task activity by time throughout the duration of the batch cycle. Tasks are sorted down the side by start time while activity is graphed throughout the execution of the cycle across the width of the chart. A cumulative count of active tasks and average CPU is shown in graphs syncronized with the chart's timeline at the bottom of the report. The Gantt chart provides a quick method to identify when cycles are least active. This is ideal for planning when new work can be added or when maintenance windows should be planned.
  
  
  

Real Time Monitor (RTM) Component

What is VisiTrac/RTM?

VisiTrac/RTM provides a real time view of your processes as they execute. The product is distributed as an add-on component of the VisiTrac/Basic product. VisiTrac/RTM uses the download (report) file produced by the basic product as input to any monitoring session.

VisiTrac/RTM builds on the historical reports created by VisiTrac/Basic by allowing the user to directly monitor an active process as it runs. The key requirement for the basic product is to provide RTM with a model of how the process normally executes. RTM uses the model flowchart to predict future timings of tasks not yet run based on the average start and run times as calculated by the VisiTrac/Basic product.

The base product provides extensive criteria to identify not only individual process collections of jobs, but also specific instances of each process based on when and/or how any particular instance of a process executes. This ability to distinguish versions of the same process allows VisiTrac to provide a highly accurate model of how any version normally runs.

VisiTrac/RTM uses the same desktop interface as the basic product, but enhances the information presented with real time status. Status is reported at both the task and overall process level with constant updates to the predicted end time of the entire system of work.

At the process level the product constantly updates the expected end time of the overall collection of tasks. If a Target End Time is provided then RTM will also grade the current execution, comparing the predicted end time to the desired target end time and summarize status as on-time, in jeopardy or late.

The basic flowchart view is augmented by adding status changes like waiting, running, stalled and finished with any basic exception status.

A powerful additional status provided at both the process and task level of display is the concept of work being stalled. A stalled process is one where some critical path task has been waiting longer than a user defined threshold after all dependencies have been resolved. Stalled processes are noted on the process-level display. The stalled task is specifically identified on the flowchart view.

Who Needs VisiTrac/RTM?

• Operations Control Managers who need to track their workloads as they run with status reporting that might prompt them to adjust resource allocation to help a troubled process meet its SLA goal.
• Performance Technicians who want to be quickly notified of troubled processes while they're running, not the day after
• Upper-Management who needs a quick view of process status as they run
• Customers and Application programmers engaged in monitoring workload, perhaps as it runs new software and/or conducts altered processing
• Customers of outsourcing firms who need their own tools to monitor the outsourcing company's performance as it happens

The Active VisiTrac/RTM Displays

• Active Process Status Display
  The Active Process Status display provides one line per process in the download file. As each process transitions from a waiting status to a running status and on to a finished state, this display provides high-level status updates designed to keep you informed on the condition of any process you're monitoring.
  
  
  
• Active Task Flowchart
  The Task Flowchart is the same flowchart seen in the basic product. However, it is augmented with the active posting of individual task status as tasks migrated from a waiting status, to a running status, to a completed status. All along the VisiTrac modeling engine posts updates to the present critical path of the process and its overall, predicted end time.
  
  
  

How does VisiTrac/RTM Work?