App Score Overview

What is App Score?

App Score is a holistic health score for an application, represented as a color-coded letter grade. It is calculated for each application and environment combination. This allows users to compare scores for the same application across all environments where it is running. App Score represents an objective measurement and provides at-a-glance feedback on application quality and health.

How does it work?

Every hour, Retrace computes a score for all application/environments that are set up for Application Performance Monitoring (APM). The score takes into account satisfaction, performance, error, and server metrics for the previous 7 days (168 hours) to generate the rating. Much more than Apdex (Satisfaction) alone, Retrace takes advantage of additional data provided by its agent to produce a holistic rating of application quality. The formula for the score remains proprietary, but the categories of data have been enumerated in this help document, namely Apdex (Satisfaction), Error Metrics, and Server Metrics. At this time, the algorithm cannot be altered. The category weightings are the same for all applications and customers.

What do the grades mean?

Your application has scored very well!

This is the highest rating an application can achieve. In order to rank this highly, an app must score well in all categories.

Your application has scored well.

As the second highest rating, your application is better than average, but there are improvements that can be made.

Your application has scored as average.

An acceptable rating, but improvements can be made, likely in multiple categories.

Your application has scored poorly.

This indicates that your application is experiencing poor overall health and is likely disappointing consumers.

Your application has scored very poorly.

This indicates that your application is experiencing very poor performance and is probably disappointing consumers. Corrective action should be taken to determine root causes and address the issues.

App Score cannot be calculated for this application.

Since APM data is required in the scoring algorithm, this rating applies to applications that are not sending APM data.

App Score will be calculated when enough time has passed.

The algorithm requires at least 24 hours of data before a score can be accurately computed. Newly discovered applications will not have enough historical data to immediately compute the score and will therefore display this icon.

How Can I Improve My App Score?

Below are the suggested ways to improve your App Score for applications:

Correct slow running requests

Slow requests negatively affect the Apdex (Satisfaction) score and are taken into account in the App Score algorithm. When deciding which requests to target for improvement, it is wise to consider the volume of calls a request receives as well as the average time it takes to process. A small improvement in a call with very high volume will move the needle much more than a large improvement on a request that happens once an hour.

Correct slow running queries

Slow-running queries are often the cause of the slow requests mentioned above. The same rule applies to queries as with requests; tuning those with a high call volume provides the most impact.

Provide Retrace with error logs

Since error counts and volume affect the App Score, failure to provide this data will be negatively reflected in your score. App Score is only one advantage of providing errors and logs to Retrace. For more information about errors and logs, click here.

Reduce the overall count of errors being thrown

A high error count will negatively affect your App Score for obvious reasons. An unhandled error could represent a failed user operation, display an error page to your consumer, or even crash the entire application. Investigating and reducing the error volume will improve all aspects of your application's quality.

Reduce the count of new and regressed errors being created

Of particular concern are new and regressed errors. New errors represent something that hasn’t occurred until now and can be an indicator of sloppy coding, poor testing, or data anomalies. Regressed errors are especially bothersome since they have recurred after being marked as fixed. Both of these types of errors can be reduced by writing unit tests for corrected defects at the time the resolution is coded.

Tune your application’s CPU usage

Inefficient applications have a tendency to consume large amounts of CPU while producing nominal results. If your application is routinely taxing the CPU, it is more likely than not causing other side effects that reduce application satisfaction.

Tune your Satisfaction Goal

If there are applications or individual requests in your application that are known and expected to be slower than others, the Satisfaction Goal can be modified to reflect the more realistic target response time. Making this goal more forgiving will increase satisfaction and can affect App Score.